[HN Gopher] Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calli...
___________________________________________________________________
Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a
'threat' to iOS
Author : madtrax
Score : 705 points
Date : 2024-03-06 17:53 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (techcrunch.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (techcrunch.com)
| WolfCop wrote:
| > Apple said one of the reasons they terminated our developer
| account only a few weeks after approving it was because we
| publicly criticized their proposed DMA compliance plan.
| andersa wrote:
| Not a valid reason to terminate it.
| bunbun69 wrote:
| Are you believing a "trust me bro" comment?
| archagon wrote:
| Say what you want about Tim Sweeney, but he has integrity.
| twoodfin wrote:
| In what sense did the submarine delivery of functionality
| clearly in violation of their contract with Apple--the
| inspiring incident for all this drama--represent
| integrity?
| archagon wrote:
| It was very obviously intended as a launch pad for the
| lawsuit, not a genuine attempt to skirt App Store rules.
| twoodfin wrote:
| If my contractual partners were to violate agreements I
| had entered into in good faith in order to gain PR
| advantage in a pre-planned legal dispute, I wouldn't tend
| to think of them as displaying integrity.
| archagon wrote:
| Yes, from the perspective of a corporation being sued for
| acting unethically, Sweeny lacks integrity. I'm not sure
| that reflects poorly on Sweeny's character.
| Jensson wrote:
| Apple says they did it for no reason other than that they
| could, not because Epic violated anything.
|
| > "Epic's egregious breach of its contractual obligations
| to Apple led courts to determine that Apple has the right
| to terminate 'any or all of Epic Games' wholly owned
| subsidiaries, affiliates, and/or other entities under Epic
| Games' control at any time and at Apple's sole discretion.'
| In light of Epic's past and ongoing behavior, Apple chose
| to exercise that right."
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2024/03/06/apple-terminates-epic-
| game...
| lsaferite wrote:
| > no reason other than that they could
|
| That's statement is wrong given the quote you posted
| right after. They clearly state it's due to perceived
| breaches of contractual obligations.
|
| FWIW, I have no horse in the race, just pointing out what
| I would assuming is a misapprehension in your statement.
| Jensson wrote:
| That quote didn't show the whole part, I realized it
| looks a bit strange out of context there. Here I'll break
| it down with some more:
|
| > Schiller suggests that Epic's "colorful criticism"
| combined with its past actions "strongly suggests that
| Epic Sweden does not intend to follow the rules."
|
| So, the main transgression here was "colorful criticism",
| that is the ongoing behavior by epic, nothing about
| safety or contractual breeches. If they believed Epic
| would break contract they would have banned them 5 years
| ago when that breech happened, not now, nobody can argue
| that a 5 year old breech of contract on another account
| actually warrants a random ban of this account today.
| retskrad wrote:
| Why are investors seemingly blind to the fact that Apple is
| fighting tooth and nail to protect their App Store revenue (while
| looking like jackasses in the court of public opinion and pissing
| off regulators and their relationship with developers) because if
| the App Store money in their pocket dries up, all hell breaks
| loose because all of their hardware products are no longer
| growing. The stock will crash and the executive team will be in
| trouble.
| NBJack wrote:
| Pretty sure the savvy investors know this. But why would they
| kill the golden goose?
| observationist wrote:
| A walled garden is difficult and expensive to maintain. In
| Apple's case, it also requires a constant battle against the
| public interest, because they've carved out various niches in
| domains that intrude on interoperability, consumer rights,
| privacy, censorship, surveillance, tax evasion, child
| slavery, and so on. If they cede ground, they lose money, so
| they develop and execute strategies that minimize or mitigate
| loss in conjunction with maximizing gain.
|
| Apple has no principles or ethics or morals to which it is
| bound; it's governed by an optimization algorithm that pits
| the profit incentive against the constraints of resources,
| legislation, and their public image.
|
| Apple's only as effective as the humans who execute their
| assigned roles within the overall algorithm, so the
| organization is subject to the usual human weaknesses and
| foibles.
|
| Pride. Arrogance. Bullheadedness. Complacency.
|
| If these weaknesses infect the culture, spreading across many
| roles, then many things can degrade and spin out of control.
| Apple is just as mortal and vulnerable as MySpace, Yahoo,
| Sears, Blockbuster, or any other big company or institution.
|
| Without the advantages afforded by the unsavory, unethical,
| and unprincipled aspects of their business, Apple might not
| be able to maintain their walled garden effectively. Apple's
| particular variety of golden goose may not continue to be
| compatible with the markets in which it currently dominates,
| since much of the regulation, litigation, and legislation
| will focus on Apple's effects on the world.
|
| Lots of things could happen outside their control that would
| kill the golden goose. Lots more things could happen if they
| fall prey to human failure modes.
| ajross wrote:
| This is indeed an analysis that we don't see often enough.
| Apple is viewed as a "tech company" and tech companies are all
| about innovation and growth. And their stocks are priced
| accordingly. But, Apple is actually extremely conservative with
| product rollouts and new markets (c.f. having essentially
| missed the boat on AI). They make phones and sell phone apps.
| They do a few other things, but at the end of the day their
| balance sheet says "Apple sells phones".
|
| And the phone market is saturated now. Everyone's got one. They
| keep getting better and people keep them longer. And Apple
| _already has_ a 50% share of units sold, and a much higher
| proportion of total revenue. This market is tapped out. It 's
| not going to grow.
|
| Really the mess happening in Europe (mostly in Europe anyway)
| is best seen as a desperate struggle to push the growth
| reckoning far enough out for them to roll out a new successful
| product. They're rent seeking just to keep the balance sheet
| clean, but it won't work forever.
|
| Really this happens to all big tech companies. Eventually the
| original product set starts to commoditize and there's nothing
| left to fill the void.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| As long as new people are growing up, they're going to need
| their own phones, so there will always be a market. The same
| of course with many other consumer goods.
| ajross wrote:
| But not a growing market. You don't get a 27.27 P/E ratio
| by selling phones to the same fraction of the general
| population. Indeed, that's "the same as many other consumer
| goods", so go check valuations of Nestle or Proctor &
| Gamble or whatever.
|
| The point is that an Apple stock priced at a level
| commensurate with a static market would be a catastrophic
| loss of shareholder value.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Well of course nothing can grow forever. But Apple can
| still keep making profits every year and pay dividends.
| Why should I or anybody else care any more than that for
| the shareholders? Boo-hoo?
| gen220 wrote:
| I'd recommend looking at P/S, Gross Margin and Operating
| Margins. They're more robust measurement tools than P/E
| and Net Margin, because - unlike Net Income (Earnings) -
| Revenue, Cost of Revenue and Operating Expenses are not
| accounting magic.
|
| Today, Apple trades at 6.94 Price/TTM Sales per Share.
| P&G trades at 4.7.
|
| Apple's TTM Gross Margin and TTM Operating Margins are
| 45% and 30.7%.
|
| P&G's are 50% and 22%.
|
| Apple's TTM Operating Margin is 1.395x of P&G's, and
| their P/S is 1.476x of P&G. This is the explanatory
| variable for the higher P/S - higher operating
| efficiency. Which makes sense because their blend of
| revenue includes services and insurance, not just high-
| margin physical products.
|
| IDK the point you're trying to make, because these
| companies have essentially the same multiples today.
| Apple's market cap is higher because their TTM revenue is
| $386B and P&G's is $84B. But their key ratios are not so
| far apart.
|
| I wrote all this up to show you the perils of P/E
| comparisons... before realizing that Apple and P&G
| actually have _essentially identical_ P /E valuations
| (~26-27). In this instance, there's not a lot of peril,
| because they're both in a similar phase of corporate
| life: operating as late-stage growth companies surfing
| the wave separating innovation from profit-maximization
| for as long as they can - where generating income is
| important (so net income is not hovering around zero) but
| not the end-all/be-all (there're still expectations of
| YoY revenue growth).
|
| Besides, Apple's customer and revenue composition is also
| not at all static, and you'd understand this if you read
| their earnings reports. They are not a dam that's waiting
| to burst, in spite of some people willing them to be. On
| the contrary, they've never been stickier or more mass-
| market than they are today.
| zogrodea wrote:
| That's an interesting thought and makes me think, because
| of declining birth rates and an ageing population, Apple
| will have fewer and fewer people to sell phones to as time
| goes on.
| amluto wrote:
| > c.f. having essentially missed the boat on AI
|
| What boat? Not being first to market with a fancy commercial-
| grade model and charging $20/mo for consumer-style access (a
| la OpenAI)? Not having a cloud offering (MS, etc)? Not having
| a fancy in-your-pocket AI (like... no one? Siri is behind the
| times, and a better Siri would be great, but IMO the issue
| isn't so much the quality of the language model but that Siri
| is oddly limited in what it can interact with).
|
| I agree that Apple hasn't been amazingly innovative in the
| last few years, but being off the AI hype boat seems off the
| mark.
| ajross wrote:
| AI is producing shareholder value like crazy. No, that's
| not the same thing as a new market, exactly, but it speaks
| to the same need in the C suites. Apple didn't get on that
| boat, and so is being forced into squeezing their partners
| and fighting in the trenches on essentially unwinnable
| regulatory points just to preserve the illusion of growth.
| AI is a much more effective illusion of growth!
| matwood wrote:
| The did mention AI 12 times in the PR announcing the
| updated MBA earlier this week.
| bevekspldnw wrote:
| I think the cracks will start to show the longer big apps don't
| come to Vision Pro. Apple has spent the last decade pissing off
| developers and partners, and just when they need them the most
| - during the fragile time of getting an entire new platform off
| the ground - they are doubling down on being assholes.
|
| Every single review I've seen mentions that Netflix and YouTube
| aren't on Vision Pro. One of the biggest applications of VR is
| gaming and they're going nuclear with Epic instead of
| developing a great partnership to bring high value gaming to
| Vision Pro. Hubris before the fall.
| graphe wrote:
| From it's issues I bet you it's infighting from a group
| trying to kill the vision pro from apple.
| bevekspldnw wrote:
| The fact that they went to market with a $3.5k price tag
| tells me they just aren't serious about wide adoption,
| period.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The original Mac cost about $7k in current dollars.
|
| I remember thinking the original iPhone was hugely
| overpriced, too.
| causal wrote:
| Apple themselves seem to forget that a huge selling point for
| the iPhone/iPod Touch was video games. Seeing those bright
| flashy games rendering on such a beautiful screen in the palm
| of your hand- it blew everything else out of the water.
|
| Social media eventually took over as the killer apps, but for
| a while it was Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja on everyone's
| phone.
| bevekspldnw wrote:
| Exactly - and many of the Vision Pro reviews talk about
| Fruit Ninja being great!
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Social media eventually took over as the killer apps, but
| for a while it was Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja on
| everyone's phone.
|
| ... not to mention the _countless_ fart sound players,
| virtual beer glasses and other such low-quality stuff.
| DinaCoder99 wrote:
| Blind? I assumed that the monopoly on iphone app distribution
| (and the corresponding growth in fee revenue) was why the stock
| has been so high recently.
| bustling-noose wrote:
| The investors aren't interested in Apple selling more phones
| each year than previous. The investors are interested in people
| using the iPhone as a yearly or bi yearly upgrade cycle product
| in their life and giving Apple money without much bother and
| accepting it as a part of culture, especially American.
|
| I wouldn't have thought India, a country that is so price
| sensitive, would be a place you find so many iPhones. But
| Indians love what America does and follow them blindly.
|
| The iPhone might not be the next big thing, but for most
| invested in the cloud and app ecosystem, the choice they have
| to make is whether you upgrade this year or next. It's like
| Visa or Mastercard. You can cry all you want about high
| transaction fees. America is still going to keep using it and
| give them money.
|
| Investors are loving this trend. Starbucks, Visa, Mastercard,
| Nike, American Express, Bank of America, Coca Cola and what
| not. Investors love companies that become part of the culture
| and despite their horrifying practices, people seem to still go
| back to them.
| pimterry wrote:
| > I wouldn't have thought India, a country that is so price
| sensitive, would be a place you find so many iPhones. But
| Indians love what America does and follow them blindly.
|
| This is extremely wrong.
|
| https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/india
| suggests Android has 95%+ market share in India (and largely
| unchanged for years).
|
| https://www.statista.com/chart/22702/andoid-ios-market-
| share... lists India as one of the least iPhone-using
| countries in the world.
|
| iPhone's are more than 3x more popular across Africa, South
| America and the rest of Asia than they are in India
| (https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/africa,
| https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/south-
| amer..., https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-
| share/mobile/asia).
| abhinavk wrote:
| Our population is too large to even 5% be enough of a
| market segment. 5% is still a hell lot of phones. In Tier-1
| cities and urban centers, you would see iPhones everywhere
| in offices and restaurants. Nobody cares about blue
| messages here but the phone itself is definitely a status
| symbol here.
|
| On the other hand, Indian government loves doing what EU
| does. After USB-C and moving towards AI Safety laws, we
| expect a DMA-like law soon.
| bustling-noose wrote:
| I said 'find so many iPhones' I didn't say they were
| leading. Apple sells millions of units in India and with a
| 5% market share in a country where average annual household
| income is about 5 iPhones you must realise that this is a
| very significant and important share. I see a lot of resell
| market customers preferring iPhone 7 and 8 at around 100$
| over similarly priced Android phones. the top 5% income
| households generally buy new iPhones and that trickles down
| to the masses after 3-5 years in the resell market. Thats
| how it works here as a lot of labour population seems to
| also have some old iPhone.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| This seems like a publicity stunt to me. No one would rationally
| expect Epic to have a developer account with Apple. The terms
| allow them to remove you for any reason and not disclose it.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Given the DMA, Apple are _required_ to allow people to develop
| other App Stores. If they can kick off anyone who decides to do
| that, then the law is entirely pointless (and the EU commission
| are likely to be upset).
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Sure, they are required to allow people to develop other App
| Stores.
|
| They can also add any number of other policies which you
| probably run afoul of several times a day. Then terminate you
| for that. You can still develop your app store, you just
| can't break all the rules to develop your app store.
| afavour wrote:
| ...which is exactly the kind of thing the EU Commission
| will punish them for.
|
| If they create a bunch of new rules and only punish those
| who are developing their own app stores they haven't given
| themselves a magic get out of jail free card, it'll be very
| obvious to everyone what is going on.
| stale2002 wrote:
| > Then terminate you for that
|
| And then the EU takes them to court and fines them billions
| of dollars.
|
| The rest of the world doesn't have to stand still. They can
| just confiscate Apple's money using threat of government
| force.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > No one would rationally expect Epic to have a developer
| account with Apple.
|
| Really? I would 100% expect most any large company selling
| anything into the computing or computing-adjacent space to have
| an Apple dev account and a Play Store account.
|
| My _supermarket chain_ has an Apple dev account. Target has an
| Apple dev account. (Both presumably have Play Store accounts as
| well.) If those brick-and-mortar companies can manage to reach
| their customers that way, it was more surprising to me that
| Epic _didn 't have one_ previously than the converse.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| Is Target actively hostile to the platform provider they have
| dev accounts with?
| nixgeek wrote:
| I doubt your supermarket chain has done things which rise to
| Phil Schiller responding to Epic with --
|
| > _We welcome all developers to the Developer Program so long
| as they follow the rules. Those rules, including the DPLA and
| the App Store Review Guidelines, are intended to protect the
| integrity of the ecosystem, developers large and small, and -
| most importantly-users. Accordingly, developers who are
| unable or unwilling to keep their promises can 't continue to
| participate in the Developer Program._
|
| > _In the past, Epic has entered into agreements with Apple
| and then broken them. For example, you testified that Epic
| Games, Inc. entered into the Developer Program with full
| understanding of its terms, and then chose to intentionally
| breach the agreement with Apple. You also testified that Epic
| deliberately violated Apple 's rules, to make a point and for
| financial gain. More recently, you have described our DMA
| compliance plan as "hot garbage," a "horror show," and a
| "devious new instance of Malicious Compliance." And you have
| complained about what you called "Junk Fees" and "Apple
| taxes."_
|
| > _Your colorful criticism of our DMA compliance plan,
| coupled with Epic 's past practice of intentionally violating
| contractual provisions with which it disagrees, strongly
| suggest that Epic Sweden does not intend to follow the rules.
| Another intentional breach could threaten the integrity of
| the iOS platform, as well as the security and privacy of
| users._
|
| > _You have stated that allowing enrollment of Epic Games
| Sweden in the Developer Program is "a good faith move by
| Apple." We invite you to provide us with written assurance
| that you are also acting in good faith, and that Epic Games
| Sweden will, despite your public actions and rhetoric, honor
| all of its commitments. In plain, unqualified terms, please
| tell us why we should trust Epic this time._
| andersa wrote:
| It is not relevant whether Apple trusts Epic - they are not
| legally allowed to block them while running a core platform
| service.
| WWLink wrote:
| The sooner this "ecosystem" crap dies, the better.
|
| The sooner not needing Apple dev tools or an Apple
| developer account to make software for an Apple device, the
| better.
|
| The sooner I can use my Apple Watch with an Android phone,
| the better.
|
| The sooner Apple stops (basically) requiring me to use
| icloud instead of literally any other better, cheaper,
| higher performance cloud service for my photos, videos,
| settings, and etc without nagging me 24/7 and trying to
| default to icloud storage, the better.
|
| As a long time user and buyer of Apple products, I'd really
| rather they have robust security, stable APIs, good UI
| design standards (once again), and create/support open
| standards. All of this "ecosystem" "It's secure if you use
| it our way and only our way" and "it just works (most of
| the time)" BS is annoying me.
|
| It's annoying, because over the last 20 years I've watched
| their products become weirder and more gimped and full of
| dark patterns in an attempt to force you to buy their
| services and/or lock you into buying nothing but Apple
| products.
|
| And don't even get me started about the thriving group of
| Apple-Stans that play the "YOU DON'T LIKE IT?! THEN LEAVE!
| I LOVE IT! ITS PERFECT AND YOU SHOULD TOO!" game lol. TBH
| they're even more vicious than tesla/spacex-stans....
| heresaPizza wrote:
| They went from making premium products to buggy objects
| filled with ads
| WWLink wrote:
| I think the hardware still feels pretty fancy. I recently
| bought a macbook air and iphone 13 and they feel really
| nice.. the imacs I got my brothers have been excellent as
| well....
|
| But buggy software filled with ads. Yes. That much I
| agree with!
|
| I have an android phone (galaxy fold 4) that I've been
| using as a secondary for like 14 months now. When my
| iPhone XS finally developed a swelling battery, I decided
| to retire it and switch the GF4 to my primary phone. I've
| been bouncing between Android and iOS for many years, but
| this time I felt a little bit heartbroken.....
|
| One of the reasons I like using iPhones is you can send &
| receive sms/imessage on a Mac. But if you use the google
| messages app on an android phone, you can use a webapp on
| any computer (any OS) that IMHO works better (kind of).
| For one, it works on anything!
|
| For another: MS Windows' link-to-phone thing is pretty
| sweet.
|
| For another: I like the android/samsung oneUI way of
| handling phone calls. I can't quite put my finger on it,
| but it's way less obnoxious. Especially because the
| speakerphone button ACTUALLY JUST WORKS! At some point
| iOS decided to make that button pop up a menu. Caller ID
| also works... and the scam phonecall blacklist thing
| works WAAAAY better on Android.
|
| I still don't like any other OS as much as I like MacOS,
| but I miss the days of 10.4/10.5/10.6... it feels like
| the OS has gotten heavily enshittified since then.
| Honestly it feels more like Windows XP lol. I blame it
| all on Notification Center. Notification Center is a
| badly programmed turd. It steals focus, the hotkeys don't
| work right and aren't obvious, the notifications are like
| constant nags and you generally have to opt out of them
| instead of opting into them.... I just fucking hate it.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| I don't want to live in a world where everyone has to live
| in fear of upsetting Tim Cook's fragile ego.
| andersa wrote:
| Their terms are not relevant, Apple has no authority over the
| DMA.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| so if I set up my own app store with nothing but apps
| designed to scam people, Apple has to allow me to do it?
| BearOso wrote:
| You could, but few people are going to fall for that. Are
| you offering something that would entice people away,
| something huge like Fortnite? Most non-technical people
| will stick with the App store.
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| My guess is that since fraud is presumably illegal in the
| EU, scam developers are not protected by the DMA. But I
| don't know EU law and didn't read the full text of the DMA
| although I did read some of the English version a while
| ago,
| hu3 wrote:
| App Store is already rampant with scams so nothing new
| under the sun.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/06/apple-
| a...
|
| https://mashable.com/article/apple-mac-app-store-scam-
| forces...
|
| https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/84-dangerous-
| scam-...
| Fin_Code wrote:
| Sounds like they violated a non disparagement clause and signaled
| they will not adhere to policy. All they had to do is keep quiet
| and launch to minimize their liability.
|
| Guess they will need to fight in the EU to see if they can claw
| back.
| jefftk wrote:
| Where are you seeing a non disparagement clause?
| andersa wrote:
| A non-disparagement clause is not valid under the DMA.
| r00fus wrote:
| Perhaps Apple needs to separate geographies in its account
| setup. Let Epic have the EU account, but disable them
| everywhere else.
|
| Because in the US/Asia, Epic has no DMA protections.
| andersa wrote:
| This is indeed about an EU-specific account by Epic Games
| Sweden.
| otterley wrote:
| Do you have a legal citation for this assertion?
| BearOso wrote:
| There's no chance the DMA includes a non disparagement clause.
| That's totally against free speech.
| Kluggy wrote:
| I don't understand how free speech relates to the DMA?
| BearOso wrote:
| Not "free speech" as part of the US Bill of Rights, free
| speech as in "the EU ethics would never have such language
| in the DMA to forbid it or allow such a violation to
| stand."
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| Free speech has nothing to do with any of this
| Jensson wrote:
| Apple terminated Epics account for Epic criticizing Apple,
| not for anything Epic did with the account. That is a free
| speech violation, retaliating for unrelated speech is
| against the ideal of free speech.
|
| USAs free speech laws mostly just bans governments from
| retaliating, but a more encompassing law would also ban
| corporations from doing so as well, there is no reason you
| should fear speaking up just because the corporation might
| retaliate and ruin your life. USA already has such anti
| retaliation laws for companies in some cases so there is
| nothing unreasonable about it.
| SteveNuts wrote:
| "Free speech" is all about the _government_ not persecuting
| an individual for something they say.
|
| It offers no protection in a case like this between two non-
| government entities.
| charcircuit wrote:
| You are talking about the US's first ammendment. That
| doesn't exist in the EU.
| lxgr wrote:
| True, but they raise a valid point in that even in the
| US, the government has no standing to intervene with
| private individuals limiting each others' speech
| contractually. NDAs are very much enforceable in the US.
| Jensson wrote:
| > even in the US, the government has no standing to
| intervene with private individuals limiting each others'
| speech
|
| In Europe the government does that though, so "even in
| the US" is a nonsense argument here, the US is horrible
| at protecting individuals rights against oppressive
| companies.
|
| I am not certain about such laws that could apply to this
| case, but there are already plenty of laws around what
| you are allowed to retaliate for etc. Just like USA makes
| it illegal to fire based on race or to fire union
| organizers, it is the same principle.
| SteveNuts wrote:
| >You are talking about the US's first ammendment.
|
| Then the "freedom of speech" argument is even more
| irrelevant, in my mind.
| Jensson wrote:
| Companies can't fire you for unrelated speech in most of
| Europe, their laws doesn't protect you as much from
| governments but they protect speech significantly more
| against private corporations.
|
| So just because US freedom of speech is limited to
| government doesn't mean that applies everywhere.
| SteveNuts wrote:
| I still don't see how that is relevant at all between
| Apple and Epic...
| Jensson wrote:
| This is Apple retaliating for Epic criticizing them. You
| aren't allowed to do that without a more reasonable
| cause, Apple argues that it isn't illegal retaliation
| since they have reason to suspect Epic will breach
| contract, so it isn't entirely clear. But it is clear
| that free speech is highly relevant to this case and the
| courts will decide if you are allowed to retaliate for
| this kind of speech or not.
| rvense wrote:
| I don't think it applies in this case for the exact
| reasons stated, but the EU does indeed have a charter on
| fundamental rights that covers freedom of expression,
| among other things.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Righ
| ts_...
| lapcat wrote:
| > Sounds like they violated a non disparagement clause
|
| Where do you get this? No third-party developer is under such
| legal obligation.
| apozem wrote:
| Apple's lawyer states no such thing, only that they have the
| right to revoke anyone's developer account for any time and for
| any reason. They believe Epic will violate their rules in the
| future and affect iOS users' privacy and safety, so they banned
| them.
|
| I know this is the internet, and no one actually reads the
| linked articles, but I really wish people would do so before
| weighing in. You did not need to make up a non-disparagement
| clause.
| 123yawaworht456 wrote:
| >safety
|
| the past few years made me really fucking hate that word.
| rvz wrote:
| Here we go again...
| jiripospisil wrote:
| > (...) the U.S. judgment expressly provides that "Apple has the
| contractual right to terminate (...)
|
| Yeah good luck with that in an EU court.
| ajaimk wrote:
| They got kicked out for willingly breaking the rules in the past.
| Not for criticizing Apple. Actions have consequences.
| NBJack wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > Apple said one of the reasons they terminated our developer
| account only a few weeks after approving it was because we
| publicly criticized their proposed DMA compliance plan. Apple
| cited this X post from this thread written by Tim Sweeney.
| Apple is retaliating against Epic for speaking out against
| Apple's unfair and illegal practices, just as they've done to
| other developers time and time again.
| lxgr wrote:
| The difference is that Apple is now largely no longer in
| control of the rules, at least in the EU. It seems like they
| haven't come to terms with that yet.
| hizanberg wrote:
| If I had a Customer that spent years relentlessly complaining
| about my Company, I know I wouldn't want to have them as a
| Customer.
|
| It does present an interesting question on whether a Company can
| be forced to have a bad actor as a Customer, I guess this will be
| decided in the lawsuits to come.
| ajross wrote:
| App vendors aren't customers. They don't pay Apple anything
| more than the license fees for Xcode. The app's users are the
| customers, and if you start throwing out the partners you lose
| customers. Now, sure, the calculus might change depending on
| your relationship with each partner, but you absolutely cant
| say that Epic doesn't bring revenue to Apple. They do.
| ginko wrote:
| Epic isn't apple's customer. They just use their tools.
| andersa wrote:
| Your company is likely not considered a core platform service,
| so your analogy is not relevant.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| The key difference I see in Apple's app store business is that
| it's a monopolistic marketplace model. If Apple allowed an
| alternative to the app store then this wouldn't be an issue.
| Take Microsoft and Windows as an example, they have the
| Microsoft store which operates as a marketplace with rules but
| they don't get the same scrutiny because there are
| alternatives. Don't like what MS is doing with their app store?
| Fine just release the binary yourself.
|
| With Apple though, the bring it on themselves by having a
| monopolistic marketplace. Since they are the sole gatekeeper to
| getting apps on the iDevices, there is no alternative like
| there is in the MS ecosystem. Apple could end all scrutiny
| tomorrow if they allowed a way to install apps on iDevices that
| bypassed the app store and Epic would have no case.
| askonomm wrote:
| But as of iOS 17.4 they do allow alternative app stores in
| EU.
| whazor wrote:
| No, you need an Apple developer account to set up an
| alternative marketplace.
| lozenge wrote:
| You still need a developer account to notarise apps that
| are published on alternative app stores. Plus you need to
| agree to pay Apple the Core Technology Fee.
| codingcodingboy wrote:
| Why didn't the EU force the removal of those
| requirements? Apple will keep playing games to make
| alternative stores uncompetitive and keep away unwanted
| developers.
| Jensson wrote:
| I think 8 was intended to stop that sort of thing, but
| maybe Apple thinks it doesn't apply?
|
| 8. The gatekeeper shall not require business users or end
| users to subscribe to, or register with, any further core
| platform services, as a condition for being able to use,
| access, sign up for or registering with any of that
| gatekeeper's core platform services listed pursuant to
| that Article.
| codingcodingboy wrote:
| You are probably right, and now I wonder if this doesn't
| also apply to the standard Apple developer program.
|
| I have not read the DMA but in the gatekeeper section of
| the official website the Core platform services listed
| are AppStore, iOS and Safari. Let's suppose that you
| single out iOs, why should I sign up something about
| AppStore to develop apps?
| threeseed wrote:
| Because it's still Apple's platform.
|
| And they have a right to prevent apps that harm the
| integrity of the overall platform which is what
| notarisation is designed to prevent.
|
| Also companies have always charged a fee for using their
| SDKs. Even today Epic does this i.e. 12%.
| Phrodo_00 wrote:
| > Because it's still Apple's platform.
|
| It's not Apple's devices, though.
| freedomben wrote:
| As long as Apple has a higher level of access to the
| device than the user does, it's still Apple's device.
| They've just done a great job at making the user _think_
| they own it.
| jsnell wrote:
| DMA enforcement only started today. Until today, all
| these plans were just words on a paper. The EC will only
| look at the real state of the world now that enforcement
| has started, and make their enforcement decisions based
| on that and the public feedback. They aren't giving any
| kind of pre-approvals or pre-denials to the plans.
|
| (If they were pre-evaluating plans, the optimal play for
| the gatekeepers would be to propose something totally
| unreasonable, and then negotiate it to something that's
| mostly unreasonable but just barely acceptable to the EC.
| That would be a bad outcome for the EC. So from a game
| theory perspective, they're better of making the
| companies guess at what will be acceptable rather than
| negotiating, since the companies will want to be
| conservative.)
| screamingninja wrote:
| Here are some articles that specifically discuss what is
| wrong with Apple's approach in allowing alternative app
| stores.
|
| https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/06/spoil-the-bunch/
|
| https://proton.me/blog/apple-dma-compliance-plan-trap
|
| > Introducing the Core Technology Fee (CTF), a junk fee
| that serves no purpose other than trapping popular apps in
| Apple's current shakedown scheme. By charging a EUR.50 fee
| for each install after the first 1 million, Apple
| effectively uses a popular app's scale against it to
| prevent it from using an alternative payment system or app
| store.
|
| > If you decide to use anything other than Apple's in-app
| purchase system, you're forced to display a "scare screen"
| designed by Apple, which you cannot modify.
|
| > Once you choose which policy you want to implement -- the
| current App Store policy or Apple's proposed new policy --
| your decision is permanent. So if you decide to take the
| risk of trying out alternative payments and it ends up
| working worse for your business, Apple doesn't allow you to
| go back and instead traps you permanently.
| borland wrote:
| In iOS 17.4 Apple allows you to apply to create an
| alternative store. Apple can still deny your request and
| kill your alternative store, and this is exactly what
| happened.
|
| Epic opened a developer account under their european
| subsidiary company, which applied for this, and Apple just
| banned that account, so Epic can't create a store. Perhaps
| if someone else (Google, Microsoft, Meta) made a store,
| Epic might be able to upload apps to that store, but
| because in the Apple world everything traces back to the
| developer accounts, I'm pretty sure that would be blocked
| by Apple as well.
|
| As much as it might seem like Tim Sweeney was exaggerating
| about Apple's DMA "compliance" changes being hot garbage, a
| horror show, and malicious compliance -- he really wasn't.
| Apple are in full on villain mode here.
|
| The part that doesn't make sense, is why Apple are choosing
| to be _such dicks_ about everything, when the EU is already
| breathing down their necks. They 're inviting more and
| harsher regulation upon themselves and making the rest of
| the world hate them in the process.
| threeseed wrote:
| Epic has a long history of breaking the terms of
| contracts they are sign.
|
| Most companies won't deal with actors who continually do
| this.
| layer8 wrote:
| Which they are preventing Epic from creating because it
| requires an Apple developer account.
| nottorp wrote:
| They don't really. Money matters aside, the apps still need
| to be approved by Apple. They could drop all fees and it
| would still mean they don't allow alternatives.
| 1over137 wrote:
| Do you still need an AppleID to use these alternative
| stores?
| gopher_space wrote:
| > Don't like what MS is doing with their app store? Fine just
| release the binary yourself.
|
| Whip up a small windows binary and send it to your mom. See
| if she can run it without any help from you. MS is doing the
| same thing from a different angle.
| nottorp wrote:
| Eh, you create a msi including all dependencies with tools
| provided to you by Microsoft free of charge and without
| restrictions. And mom gets a start menu icon.
|
| Can you do the same on iOS?
| abhinavk wrote:
| * Signed .exe works but has a cost.
|
| * Unsigned .exe gets a security prompt to Run/Don't Run for
| the first time.
|
| * MSI has an installation wizard.
|
| * MSIX has a simple Install prompt like PWAs.
| pompino wrote:
| Not even close. MS is allowing the end user alternate means
| of installing software. Apple is trying to rob each iOS
| developer of 30% of their sales.
| lxgr wrote:
| Companies in quite a few industries have a duty to do business
| with you, with very few limitations. For example, in some
| countries/cities, taxis generally can't refuse transportation
| to you, assuming you're able to pay and not endangering the
| driver. Having publicly and repeatedly expressed a dislike for
| taxis, or even wearing a t-shirt saying "taxis in $city are an
| overpriced monopoly" would not be a valid reason to be refused
| transportation.
|
| In the EU/under the DMA, Apple now very likely has a duty to
| transact even with app developers saying mean things about
| them. That's certainly a very new situation for Apple, but not
| an unprecedented one.
|
| I'm not sure if throwing more hissy fits and breaking more of
| their playmates' toys is a good idea now that adults are in the
| room.
| mckn1ght wrote:
| Taxis in many cities operate under the authority of a
| government institution [0], so it makes more sense that they
| have a duty to do business with the public.
|
| Whereas one can often experience waiting for a Lyft/Uber
| where drivers repeatedly decline service after initially
| accepting.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_medallion
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| This doesn't really have anything to do with licensing.
| There are laws that prohibit businesses from e.g. refusing
| customers on the basis of race or sex and it doesn't matter
| if you're a restaurant or a hardware store or a flower
| shop.
| mckn1ght wrote:
| That's true, but is there any reason to believe Apple is
| acting in such a discriminatory fashion against a
| protected class of citizen?
| Jensson wrote:
| This is a different set of laws, different set of
| protected things that you aren't allowed to discriminate
| or retaliate against.
| Findeton wrote:
| "taxis generally can't refuse transportation to you"
|
| The fact that it happens says nothing about whether it's
| right or not. In my opinion it's wrong and immoral that taxis
| can't refuse to service you. But taxis are very regulated in
| many places. In fact, for example, Uber is illegal in
| Colombia. And still, despite their legal status, Uber is not
| only very used in Colombia, but it's also safer than getting
| a normal taxi.
| jjmarr wrote:
| When there's a big power imbalance, putting the onus on the
| service provider to give a valid reason for denying
| customers can be more impactful than laying the burden on a
| user to prove there was discrimination.
|
| Depending on your race/ethnicity/disability/socioeconomic
| status, taxi drivers might refuse service even though it is
| against the law. It is easier to win against a taxi driver
| if they're obligated to explain why they didn't help
| someone in a wheelchair.
| Findeton wrote:
| I respectfully disagree because that goes against
| individual freedom. I understand that historically in the
| US there's been racism but that's no reason to erode
| individual freedom.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Criticizing defects in a product or criticizing a vendor's
| misbehavior doesn't make you automatically a "bad actor". A
| healthy vendor/customer relationship involves having channels
| where this criticism can be exchanged without putting the
| vendor or the customer in a bad position, and the criticism
| results in a better product.
|
| Instead, bug reports go into a black hole because Apple doesn't
| care, and they _especially_ don 't care about game developers,
| unless those game developers are running casino games or gacha
| games that bring in a billion dollars a year. Then Apple cares
| a lot - about 30%.
|
| If a billion-dollar company is so thin-skinned that they can't
| handle having their policies criticized they're run by
| children.
|
| Epic has historically brought in a lot of money for Apple, both
| directly - via titles like Infinity Blade and Fortnite - and
| indirectly - by enabling the developer ecosystem so more people
| can release titles on Apple platforms. In the past Epic helped
| promote new Apple product launches. Calling them a bad actor is
| ridiculous.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Criticizing defects in a product or criticizing a vendor
| 's misbehavior doesn't make you automatically a "bad actor"_
|
| Doing so publicly certainly does. I would terminate business
| with a client if they started airing out their issues about
| me on Twitter.
|
| That said, I'm not Apple. At a certain size, you lose the
| right to reject bad actors.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Like I said, Apple gives you no other choice. They don't
| have proper channels for communication on things like
| software defects or policy. You have to kick up a public
| outcry to get any help.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Apple gives you no other choice_
|
| Sweeney and Schiller were emailing. Apple will read a
| letter you send addressed to their legal team.
| nottorp wrote:
| You don't control access to half of the world's mobile
| devices do you? :)
| wtallis wrote:
| Epic is trying not to call attention to it, but in the emails
| they published from Apple, Epic's history of violating an
| agreement with Apple was cited as why Apple has reason to not
| trust Epic. That may not be sufficient justification under EU
| law, but it's unquestionable that Apple has more underlying
| their concerns than just Epic's recent public complaining.
| misnome wrote:
| > Calling them a bad actor is ridiculous.
|
| This is an absurd take. They very deliberately and publicly
| breached their agreement with apple, sued them when they got
| kicked out for it, and lost.
|
| If that isn't a textbook description of a bad actor then what
| the hell _would_ count for you?
| kevingadd wrote:
| By what metric is Epic Games having an account a "threat"
| to iOS? Are they going to hack end-users' devices? Collect
| their private information without permission and sell it to
| third parties? All just by having a developer account?
|
| Isn't the app review system combined with iOS's robust
| security infrastructure supposed to prevent such an
| outcome? If a company as big and legally accountable as
| Epic, with a long track record, is so dangerous - by that
| standard lots of other developer accounts should be closed
| down too, just to be safe.
|
| It's perfectly reasonable to go "I don't want to do
| business with Epic due to how they've treated me" but
| _being your opponent_ is different from _being a bad
| actor_. Using language like this pointlessly inflates the
| magnitude of what Epic actually did and misrepresents the
| nature of their conflict with Apple.
| archagon wrote:
| If your company has a market segment captured, you should not
| have any right to do that, irrespective of your feelings.
| the_mitsuhiko wrote:
| In Europe there is the concept of "Forced to contract". You can
| be forced to accept a customer. Applies to many monopolies.
| nottorp wrote:
| Single payer health insurance, for example :)
| eviks wrote:
| Why not? There will be more complaints because of your action
| 015a wrote:
| Epic _also_ doesn 't want to be Apple's customer. No one would
| describe the relationship between Microsoft and Epic as "Epic
| being Microsoft's customer" because they distribute the Epic
| Games Store and Fortnite on Windows (Xbox console distribution
| notwithstanding; there it is more of a customer relationship).
|
| Apple forces everyone who wants access to 50% of the mobile
| computing market into a customer-oriented relationship, and
| then complains when not everyone Thinks The Same as they do.
| Its disgusting behavior.
| layer8 wrote:
| The issue is that Epic doesn't want to be Apple's customer in
| the first place. They want to publish iOS apps. The fact that
| this requires them to be an Apple customer is the core problem.
|
| Imagine if everyone wanting to publish a web app would have to
| be a customer of the respective browser vendors.
|
| Everyone complains about Google and Mozilla and Safari and
| Edge. Luckily, that doesn't prevent us from having our web apps
| running on those browsers.
| lelandfe wrote:
| Publishing a Chrome browser extension more-or-less requires
| being a customer of the Chrome Web Store. There are plenty of
| other examples, folks tend to give Playstation/Xbox/Switch
| stores in these conversations as well.
| Phrodo_00 wrote:
| > Publishing a Chrome browser extension more-or-less
| requires being a customer of the Chrome Web Store
|
| Emphasis on more-or-less, though. You can use Chrome
| developer mode (which is NOT a paid option and doesn't
| require an account) to import extensions from files. You
| can't do that in iOS. That's Epic's point.
| paulmd wrote:
| you don't need a developer account to sideload an app on
| ios, and it wouldn't change anything legally if you did
| (feature tiering is legal)
|
| another classic example of android users who don't
| understand the things they're talking about. go on, tell
| me more about how "you can't copy and paste between
| applications in ios" or "there's not even a file browser"
| please.
|
| (now, still not being able to figure out a calculator app
| on ipad? _that 's_ a fair one lol)
| Zambyte wrote:
| I didn't believe you so I looked it up, and this[0] is
| what I found
|
| > AltStore then signs the application with your Apple ID
| so the app can run. You'll need to trust the developer
| certificate in your device settings, but when you do, any
| apps that you install through AltStore will work... for
| seven days. Apple has put several restrictions in place
| to make the process as difficult as possible, but the
| developer managed to work around those restrictions. As
| the clock nears closer to the end of the seven-day
| period, AltStore will refresh the signing key on the app
| so that you can get an extra seven days of usage. This
| can also run in the background.
|
| > AltStore makes use of a feature Apple introduced that
| lets you install *up to three apps* for free using your
| Apple ID.
|
| > However, AltStore relies on a computer on the same
| network running AltServer, so you'll need both iTunes and
| iCloud installed on that device. [...]
|
| Is this seriously what you're talking about? Because
| after reading that I still don't believe you can install
| apps on iOS without Apples splash of iHoly Water TM.
|
| [0] https://www.xda-developers.com/how-to-sideload-apps-
| iphone-a...
| dwaite wrote:
| Do you think this is a viable distribution model for web
| extensions, e.g. an alternative to the Chrome Web Store?
| cute_boi wrote:
| Yes, for user like me. I checked most of the extension I
| use. They directly come from github, and I generally
| don't update extension, so there is no fear of some
| sketchy website buying the extension company.
| vlod wrote:
| I use userscripts/violent-monkey for my stuff and I don't
| have to deal with any of them. I grant you, it's harder for
| people to use my stuff.
| swman wrote:
| Then they should just not publish for iOS lol.
|
| Don't like it? Don't publish to it.
|
| As a consumer I want and like the tight restrictions apple
| puts on the App Store.
|
| It's not like users can't purchase stuff without paying the
| 30% premium added by developers to offset the apple tax. Just
| go to the website and buy there. And save the 30%.
|
| My parents who are older use iPhone. They don't have to wade
| through trash like android play store. Most apps are good in
| the iOS store.
|
| If epic wants kids to buy more stuff have their parents pay
| the 30% premium. If your kid is glued to the phone I'm sure
| you enabled that and can continue enabling it. Sorry not
| sorry.
| creaturemachine wrote:
| Apple should just not sell in the EU lol.
| siegecraft wrote:
| The Supreme Court ruled that apple must allow users to
| purchase from vendor websites. Apple takes a 27% cut
| instead of 30%
| iraqmtpizza wrote:
| They never said they didn't like iOS. You're hallucinating.
| pompino wrote:
| Ah yes, the classic "Think of the innocent children and
| grandmas" . Sorry, that isn't an argument anymore. It never
| was convincing before and isn't now either.
|
| >Don't like it? Don't publish to it.
|
| Yeah, why protest at all? Just leave the country. Why fight
| corruption? Just go somewhere else where there is less of
| it. Really, why complain at all?
| dns_snek wrote:
| The number of bad faith arguments here is impressive.
|
| > Don't like it? Don't publish to it.
|
| That's not how laws work, Epic have a perfectly valid
| complaint against Apple because Apple isn't complying with
| EU law. As far as valid outcomes go, Apple can either
| comply, face fines, or leave the EU market.
|
| > As a consumer I want and like the tight restrictions
| apple puts on the App Store.
|
| That's great, but it causes demonstrable harm to the proper
| functioning of our supposed "free market", so we've
| outlawed them.
|
| > It's not like users can't purchase stuff without paying
| the 30% premium added by developers to offset the apple
| tax. Just go to the website and buy there. And save the
| 30%.
|
| Except they ban you from even mentioning that this
| alternative exist. More harm to the free market.
|
| > My parents who are older use iPhone. They don't have to
| wade through trash like android play store. Most apps are
| good in the iOS store.
|
| Nobody is forcing them to wade through alternative app
| stores. If most good apps are indeed on iOS, and Apple's
| fees are indeed reasonable, then those apps will stay in
| the iOS App Store. Nothing to worry about!
|
| > If epic wants kids to buy more stuff have their parents
| pay the 30% premium. If your kid is glued to the phone I'm
| sure you enabled that and can continue enabling it. Sorry
| not sorry.
|
| This legislation benefits everyone, not just Epic.
| samatman wrote:
| We don't have to imagine, we have 40 years of game consoles
| existing.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Which is also wrong, especially given how most modern
| consoles are basically PCs. Just see what all you can do
| with Steam Deck in comparison to the locked down consoles.
| ben_w wrote:
| I was wondering around a local store, MediaMarkt I think,
| and I saw a random handheld games console -- two sticks,
| a D-pad, XYAB buttons -- with the well-known video game
| Microsoft Excel pre-installed and visible on (I think,
| I'm not a Windows person) the start menu.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >especially given how most modern consoles are basically
| PCs.
|
| people always obsess over the hardware in these arguments
| when the value is in the software. You probably can
| eventually run windows on a PS5, but that's not what
| people buy a PS5 for. They don't advertise it as being
| able to install whatever OS you want (they made that
| mistake on PS3, took it back, and then got fined for
| taking it back), and the value for most customers is
| playing PS5 games. The onyl non-gaming thing you can do
| these days on a PS5 is watch streaming services. So at
| best it's a media center
|
| Just because you can install doom on a pregnancy test
| doesn't mean a pregnancy test is a general purpose
| computer.
| threeseed wrote:
| You are in many respects a customer of the browser vendors.
|
| They can choose at any point to harm your business e.g. Apple
| restricting first party cookies.
| Invictus0 wrote:
| They're not a monopoly though. Apple can disable safari's
| video playback capabilities, but somehow I doubt that would
| kill YouTube's business.
| joemi wrote:
| To be fair, Apple isn't killing Epic's business by
| denying them to bypass the app store, or even by kicking
| them off the app store. Epic's doing just fine without
| apple.
| layer8 wrote:
| That's a lot closer to a desktop OS update possibly
| breaking your software. This doesn't make you a customer of
| Windows/macOS/Linux.
|
| If an OS vendor would target a specific software that way,
| however, that also would likely have legal consequences.
| beezle wrote:
| A better analogy might be if a tire company could only sell
| its tires through the Ford/GM "store"/dealership. Nobody
| would put up with that.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Yet people put up with hardware lock-in on printer toner
| and cartridges (which is also very wrong).
| alt227 wrote:
| Not willingly.
|
| Theres plenty of uproar and lawsuits around that one too.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/hp-sued-again-
| for-bl...
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| I don't. I barely have a need to print to begin with but
| just enough that I have a printer. Printers aren't
| continually iterating in what and how they can print so I
| can survive on 10+ year old printers.
| yakkityyak wrote:
| I don't quite understand why they happily subscribe to this
| model with Xbox PlayStation and Nintendo, but are adamant
| about getting their way with Google and Apple.
| Zambyte wrote:
| The arbitrary limitations on computers that are obviously
| general purpose is more clear than the arbitrary
| limitations on general purpose computers that are marketed
| as special purpose computers (gaming machines). In reality
| they're all equally bad.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| Gaming consoles are not really special purpose anymore.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| They pretty much are. They don't even had facilities that
| older consoles had like an accessible web browser or
| custom theming.
|
| Just because they have general computing hardware doesn't
| mean they are general purpose computers.
| Zambyte wrote:
| That's why I called them "general purpose computers that
| are marketed as special purpose computers".
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| Oh, my bad.
| m4rtink wrote:
| I don't think they happily subscribe to the console
| bullshit either - rather, the console vendors are next once
| Epic is done with Apple.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Consoles have managed to get special pleading in every
| law of this sort so far. It's a Trumpian level of
| avoiding consequences.
| desiarnezjr wrote:
| This.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Game developers and console makers tend to have a much
| cosier relationship because they actually care about each
| other. Console makers will engage in co-marketing deals or
| other things to entice and make good on their relationship.
| 0x457 wrote:
| > Game developers and console makers tend to have a much
| cosier relationship because they actually care about each
| other.
|
| lmao, in what world? Apple used to bring Epic games on
| stage during it presentations.
|
| The difference between a gaming console and a phone is
| that your phone is in your pocket and the console isn't.
| Both provide libraries and tools for development, both
| provide support, both provide distribution channel, both
| provide free marketing, both provide and cultivate user
| base.
|
| The main difference is: console makers have publishing
| divisions (that btw put even worse restrictions
| sometimes) and as of very recently started buying every
| developer they can afford.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Have you actually published a console game? The process
| is night and day.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| It's a good question.
|
| From the EU point of view it may be simply one of scale. If
| any of those held the amount of market power Apple does, I
| suspect the EU would designate them Gatekeepers and we
| would be off to the races.
|
| From the games publisher point of view, the console
| manufacturer is actually adding significant value and
| taking a fair (or not so fair) margin in exchage. Apple
| detracts value, contributes nothing and then charges a huge
| margin for it. I can see why Epic views it differently.
| morcheeba wrote:
| >the console manufacturer is actually adding significant
| value and taking a fair (or not so fair) margin in
| exchage.
|
| I don't get this. What does a game console manufacturer
| do that Apple does not? Both provide hardware, system-
| level APIs, dev systems, developer support, customers. In
| the old days, game manufacturers didn't even provide a
| sales channel.
|
| And when you say Apple provides nothing, my above list is
| pretty solid. In the old days, developer margins were way
| slimmer, with physical stores taking a 50% cut on top of
| the console licensing fees and physical manufacturing.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| > What does a game console manufacturer do that Apple
| does not?
|
| Take it to the other extreme: what does a PC manufacturer
| do that Apple does not? Why not let Windows close down
| and take 30% on any program installed on Windows? Or go
| along with its old plans to enforce only signed Windows
| Store apps to be installed on Windows 12?
|
| It's ultimately just history and culture. We consider
| general purpose computing to be open and specialized
| computing to be closed. Apple wants to keep claiming it's
| just a phone when in reality it's basically a PC. They
| even unified their hardware so that Mac and IOS run on
| the same architecture; hardware and software wise there
| isn't much a mac can do that an iPhone can't do.
| dwaite wrote:
| > Take it to the other extreme: what does a PC
| manufacturer do that Apple does not? Why not let Windows
| close down and take 30% on any program installed on
| Windows?
|
| I mean, why not? They did so in the past (Windows 10 S).
|
| I think it turned out to be a terrible business move on
| Microsoft's part that didn't pan out, but why would it be
| regulated against now?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >I mean, why not? They did so in the past (Windows 10 S).
|
| probably because they don't want to bring up old wounds
| regarding antitrust. 10 S was trying to go around it by
| more or less making a mobile device with some desktop
| functionality. Worked out about as well as Windows 10
| mobile.
|
| >but why would it be regulated against now?
|
| well, IOS is being regulated against now, so there's your
| reason.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| They create dedicated hardware designed to excel at
| gaming and then sell it at or near cost. In a very real
| sense they create the market that games producers sell
| into, and the business model is explicitly centered
| around those software sales. They participate in
| marketing, branding, etc. There's a genuine holistic
| value exchange that happens. Apple's value exchange is
| almost negative. They invest nothing in gaming as an
| industry, charge a premium for the hardware and then add
| burdensome restrictions on how the software is delivered.
| And then they try to take the same cut that authentic
| gaming ecosystem players have as their whole revenue
| source.
| dwaite wrote:
| > They create dedicated hardware designed to excel at
| gaming and then sell it at or near cost. In a very real
| sense they create the market that games producers sell
| into, and the business model is explicitly centered
| around those software sales.
|
| So like Apple releasing the iPhone, increasing graphics
| performance by double-digit percentages consistently year
| after year?
|
| > They participate in marketing, branding, etc. There's a
| genuine holistic value exchange that happens.
|
| You would need to give me examples for non-AAA games of
| console makers providing exceptional value here. My
| understanding is that this is primarily the role of the
| publisher, not the console maker.
|
| Apple does showcase _certain_ apps on stage at keynotes,
| during commercials, with prime placement on the App
| Store, promoting special events, and so on. This is the
| level of promotion that I'm used to with game consoles as
| well.
|
| > Apple's value exchange is almost negative. They invest
| nothing in gaming as an industry, charge a premium for
| the hardware and then add burdensome restrictions on how
| the software is delivered.
|
| What is Playstation's big investment into gaming as an
| industry, if not for the hardware and the platform
| creating an ecosystem for games the same way iPhone/iOS
| have?
|
| Microsoft created DirectX the same way Apple created and
| promoted Metal. Could you elaborate on the differences?
|
| > And then they try to take the same cut that authentic
| gaming ecosystem players have as their whole revenue
| source.
|
| Yes, could you elaborate on what additional work console
| makers have done here to justify their cut that Apple
| hasn't?
| matwood wrote:
| > contributes nothing
|
| Other than cultivating a base of iOS users spending 7x
| more than Android users on apps[1]. That sounds like
| significant value to me and not dissimilar to what the
| console manufacturers pitch to developers.
|
| [1] https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/06/iphone-users-spend-
| apps/
| smoldesu wrote:
| > Other than cultivating a base of iOS users spending 7x
| more than Android users on apps[1].
|
| Those iOS users certainly aren't spending 7x more on
| AppleTV and iTunes albums. It's _because_ of third-
| parties that Apple can convince users to spend money in
| the first place.
|
| > That sounds like significant value to me and not
| dissimilar to what the console manufacturers pitch to
| developers.
|
| If console manufacturers had the hardware margins Apple
| did, they wouldn't be console manufacturers anymore.
| matwood wrote:
| Cool, so all the 3rd parties can move to Android and the
| affluent users will follow. Oh wait.
|
| The problem is assuming that either party is the one
| providing all the value. Of course the app developers are
| providing value, but so is Apple.
|
| > If console manufacturers had the hardware margins Apple
| did, they wouldn't be console manufacturers anymore.
|
| Margins are irrelevant in this discussion.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I mean, if all the third party app developers did stop
| developing for iOS, I would imagine a significant amount
| would move to Android.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| Epic doesn't want those users. It is not asking for any
| placement in the app store. It just wants it's own users
| who have iPhones to be able to access its software which
| it will funnel to them through their own channel. Apple
| contributes nothing to cultivate the gaming market
| overall. No marketing, no investment, no PR, no
| subsidation of the hardware etc. Apple simply gets in the
| way, making it harder, adding restrictions, invading
| Epic's customers privacy and then to add insult to injury
| takes a huge slice of the profits.
| dwaite wrote:
| and all Epic has to do is commit to honoring a contract
| (this time) to do that.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Logistically speaking: By the time the dust settles on such
| lawsuits, the next generation is here while the companies
| can use whatever loopholes to stall out for another
| generation. Consoles are so ephemeral in the grand scheme
| of things, and lawsuits take so long, that it's not worth
| it.
|
| Meanwhile, mobile OS's have been around for 15+ years and
| seem to be there for the long run. Playing the long game
| makes sense.
|
| ----
|
| Emotionally speaking: Tim Sweeny is a game dev at heart and
| probably respects dedicated console gaming (despite coming
| to notoriety via PC gaming). They sell consoles at a loss
| to make gaming more accessible which is many devs' goals at
| the end of the day. IOS and Android are closer to a PC than
| a dedicated console, so closing down those environments
| make no sense. Android inherently isn't closed but Google
| was strong arming 3rd parties behind the scnes (which Epic
| won in court over). Apple... well, many people reading this
| probably know that history.
| dwaite wrote:
| > Consoles are so ephemeral in the grand scheme of
| things, and lawsuits take so long, that it's not worth
| it.
|
| SOME consoles are sold at close to margins or even a loss
| at launch, making up for it later.
|
| Other companies like Nintendo have gone many generations
| selling at a profit at launch.
|
| So should Nintendo not be allowed to make the same
| revenue cut that other console makers get?
| jayd16 wrote:
| Getting a console game published is just not the same as a
| mobile app. Say what you will about the specific value but
| the process is much more involved and exclusive for
| consoles. Everything published to a console is of much
| higher quality than the app stores despite the mobile
| approval process. In this way its much easier for the
| console platform owners to argue that they are providing
| clear value.
|
| Mobile app store approval is really a joke by comparison.
| Its easier to argue that mobile app approval's main purpose
| is to provide market control.
|
| That said, its just about what is easier to argue in court
| and where to start. Epic would probably ask opt to put the
| store on consoles if they were given the chance.
| jimscard wrote:
| Everyone who publishes software that runs on iOS devices _is_
| an Apple customer, though. This isn't the same thing as a
| browser -- apps running on iOS devices consume APIs on the
| device, utilize Apple services, etc. Also, when it comes to
| web apps, in most cases, the developers _are_ also customers
| of the browser vendors -- from using browser developer tools
| and SDKs, for example, https://www.google.com/chrome/dev/ ,
| https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/ , and
| https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-
| edge/?form=M... to name three. Safari's dev tools etc. you
| get with your Apple Dev subscription.
|
| And those browser vendors, like Apple, also provide developer
| training, developer support services, early access to
| upcoming product versions, opportunities to provide input
| into future product designs and features, etc.
|
| In other words, this is _not_ a problem, much less the "core
| problem". This is normal industry practice. In fact, on some
| platforms, there are royalty fees due for the SDK runtime
| components that are required to run the software a third
| party developer provides. Just look at mainframes -- you
| might buy XYZ Accounting system from them, and have to pay an
| additional annual license payment for the cobol runtime it
| requires.
|
| That fact, by the way, is what the half a Euro per 'download'
| technology fee is about. Part of the DMA requires separation
| of the "app store fee" from the fee for using iOS services.
|
| It's also important to note, when people talk about the 30%
| app store fee as being high -- the app store is essentially
| the same thing as a retail store. Back in the days when you
| bought software in a physical store, rather than downloading
| it, the margin at the retail level ranged between 30% and
| 50%. E.g., we would pay the distributor $25 and sell it for
| $49.99. The distributor in turn would buy the software in
| bulk from the manufacturer, for somewhere around $20-$22.
|
| Software developers get a lot bigger share of what the
| consumer pays in the current model. Some, however, are
| greedier than others, and leverage governments to their
| advantage. Epic Games doesn't want any competition - they
| want to be the sole retailer of Fortnite on all platforms so
| that they can raise the price to whatever they want.
| amelius wrote:
| > The issue is that Epic doesn't want to be Apple's customer
| in the first place. They want to publish iOS apps. The fact
| that this requires them to be an Apple customer is the core
| problem.
|
| Indeed. It all boils down to: if I buy a product from company
| A, then want to use that product to do business with company
| B, why does company A have anything to say about it? Am I not
| the owner of my device?
| beeboobaa wrote:
| Then you shouldn't position yourself as a gatekeeper. I also
| don't want to pay taxes, but have to comply with the law
| anyway.
| onion2k wrote:
| _If I had a Customer that spent years relentlessly complaining
| about my Company, I know I wouldn 't want to have them as a
| Customer._
|
| Epic aren't a customer. They're a supplier. They provide Apple
| with software that Apple's customers buy.
|
| Apple are denying their customers, iPhone users, the option to
| buy Epic apps through Apple's app store. You should never lose
| sight of who actually loses here. It's not really Apple or
| Epic. They're massive corporations that will continue to make
| billions regardless. The loser is iPhone users who want to use
| their devices to play a game they enjoy.
| yokoprime wrote:
| If someone spends years badmouthing Microsoft, would you say
| its ok for Microsoft to block their apps from Windows?
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Depends on the ruling and laws. I'm sure someone who didn't
| allow homosexual couples would not want to welcome them even
| after it was ruled as unconstitutional to discriminate to them
| in the US (even if they are middle eastern and laws in their
| homeland do allow for that). They were technically rowdy
| customers but the law allows them to be in as long as their
| rowdiness was due to their identity and not other neutral
| actions (although we know they will be judged much more harshly
| on those actions as an attempt to disciminate).
|
| A bit of a crude comparison, but I hope it gets the point
| across that the behavior depends. retaliating against rules
| that the EU later determines to be bad rules may open a case to
| allow them, as long as they don't break other rules.
| gigel82 wrote:
| Epic isn't Apple's customer. Apple is just the local
| (techno)feudal lord / rentier wanting to tax all merchants
| trying to sell goods to Apple's serfs.
| heisenbit wrote:
| If one stretches ones leverage to the point where it is
| considered by authorities as excessive and is forced to make
| concessions one is not in the position to attack those who
| attacked ones monopolistic behavior. The technical term is is
| "sitting in a glass house" and while one figures out the layout
| of the panels one is advised to refrain from throwing rocks.
|
| The way I see it Apple is lumping past behavior and current
| behavior of Epic together to make an exclusion decision. But
| there was a big change between the past and now so the market
| situation has changed and access to this changed market should
| not overly depend on information from a very different world
| otherwise it can be considered at best arbitrary or an attempt
| to exclude competitors with irrelevant facts. The latter could
| get expensive.
| overgard wrote:
| Epic is only a customer because Apple's policies forces them to
| be.
| datadeft wrote:
| We need % of revenue based punishment for such acts to see fast
| this attitude can change.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Whether or not Tim Sweeney has a legal leg to stand on, I'm so
| happy he keeps fighting this. Likewise with Spotify. I love that
| the EU is pushing legislation to give at least some people back
| control of their devices.
|
| I'm curious why Tim Cook thinks Apple can continue to treat
| developers they way they do for years on end and it won't slowly
| but surely come to bite them hard one day.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Look, this is confusing. Can I just call them Tim Epic and Tim
| Apple?
| coolspot wrote:
| Yes, mr. President
| zyang wrote:
| Tim Sweeney could lead by example and remove Unreal royalty
| fees and make his app store free for all. There's no freedom
| fighter here. Just another greedy troll.
| hu3 wrote:
| > Tim Sweeney could lead by example and remove Unreal royalty
| fees and make his app store free for all. There's no freedom
| fighter here. Just another greedy troll. -zyang
|
| Unreal Engine is free up to $1 million revenue and 5% after
| that.
|
| How is that a "greedy troll"?
| adrr wrote:
| Why is it bad for people to profit off their work? You can
| use unreal engine for non-commercial use for free. The source
| is open.
| andersa wrote:
| The fines Apple is going to collect for intentionally failing to
| comply with the DMA are going to be of _Epic_ proportions,
| exceeding any profit they could have gotten by continuing to
| steal 30% from society. Ready your popcorn buckets for the next
| few months /years. They will likely be making an example out of
| Apple - after all Apple and Google are the reason for this
| legislation to exist in the first place.
|
| > In the non-compliance decision, the Commission may impose on a
| gatekeeper fines not exceeding 10 % of its total worldwide
| turnover in the preceding financial year where it finds that the
| gatekeeper, intentionally or negligently, fails to comply with
| [...]
| samatman wrote:
| Sounds like Apple should exit the European market then. No one
| is forcing them to do business there, and it only accounts for
| 10% of their revenue.
| hu3 wrote:
| Apple bent over pretty hard to stay in China [1] and they'll
| do the same for EU.
|
| Because if they don't, the network effects of an entire
| important continent without Apple's strong presence would be
| devastating long-term.
|
| [1]:
|
| - "Apple tells suppliers to use 'Taiwan, China' or 'Chinese
| Taipei' to appease Beijing" https://www.theregister.com/2022/
| 08/05/apple_warns_suppliers...
|
| - "The problem with canceling Jon Stewart: Apple bowed to
| Chinese government censorship" https://www.usatoday.com/story
| /opinion/voices/2023/10/26/jon...
|
| - "Apple pulls Taiwanese flag emoji from iPhones in Hong
| Kong"
| https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-10-08/apple-
| taiw...
| matwood wrote:
| Using China as a comparison doesn't work b/c Apple
| manufacturing is so intertwined with China. There is no
| Apple without China right now.
| TheRealDunkirk wrote:
| What percentage of their sales does the China market
| represent?
| andersa wrote:
| That would be a monumentally stupid decision when they could
| instead simply comply with the law and continue making
| slightly fewer billions of revenue. Investors won't let them
| do that, heads would roll.
| zarzavat wrote:
| Tim Cook would be deposed if he pulled out of the EU market.
| There's no way that shareholders are going to allow Apple to
| leave that much money on the table, it's unthinkable.
| pelorat wrote:
| They should just comply to be honest because it won't
| actually change things. Barely anyone in the EU is going to
| use an alternative app store, nor is anyone but a few select
| hackers going to sideload apps.
|
| Lots of brands of Android phones come shipped with
| alternative app stores, but those places are wastelands.
|
| The main issue is that you can't develop an iOS binary
| without an Apple developer account.
| k33n wrote:
| Apple should get out of the European market entirely. Their
| product offering is literally incompatible with the laws that
| govern EU commerce.
|
| There's plenty of money to be made in Asia/Pacific and the
| Americas.
|
| Apple's walled-garden approach is innovative especially on the
| security and stability fronts and anyone who doesn't like that or
| wants alternative launchers should jailbreak their ios device or
| just use Android, which does fit better into EU market.
|
| Apple has literally never cared and should never care what
| outside bodies (including to a large degree -- their own
| customers) want their products to be. It's what has made them
| unique in the past.
|
| If Apple backs down on their vision then they are no longer
| Apple.
| andersa wrote:
| Apple is making many billions selling hardware and services in
| the EU - investors would cook them for that move.
| lapcat wrote:
| Apple's last quarter results: $30 billion in net sales from
| Europe, their second largest market behind the Americas.
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2024-q1/FY24_Q1_Consol...
| lm411 wrote:
| > Apple's walled-garden approach is innovative especially on
| the security and stability fronts and anyone who doesn't like
| that or wants alternative launchers should jailbreak their ios
| device or just use Android, which does fit better into EU
| market.
|
| This how I feel completely.
|
| I use quite few different devices & operating systems on a
| daily basis (MacOS, iOS, Android, Linux, Windows, FreeBSD) and
| they all have their place. I use a Mac for my primary
| workstation and an iPhone for my primary phone specifically
| because I want security, stability, and usability on those
| devices. Also, the Apple ecosystem & iCloud, are very
| convenient for sharing / collaborating with household family
| members.
|
| Don't get me wrong - many Linux distros are very stable and
| secure. But the "year of the Linux Desktop" is still far out. I
| actually feel it's further out now than it was 5 years ago.
| Which is too bad, because I am an avid Linux user and have used
| it since Slackware 3.0 / kernel 1.2.13. Easily 50% time spent
| on my Mac is just using a terminal logged into Linux or BSD
| based servers.
|
| If I wanted a single phone, for fun, learning, hacking, etc, it
| would definitely not be an iPhone. But that's not what I want /
| need in my phone at this point in my life.
|
| It often seems that the people pushing so hard for Apple to
| change its ways are not the people that actually use Apple
| Products, but rather individuals projecting their own beliefs
| and preferences onto others.
| askonomm wrote:
| As an EU citizen, I love Apple products and would hate if I had
| to use subpar alternatives like Windows/Linux laptops or
| Android phones, so I for one would like if this would end in a
| way that Apple would remain in EU.
| samatman wrote:
| It won't end with Apple, you know. The EU's arrogance is
| going to impoverish the entire continent.
| realusername wrote:
| They didn't get out of China despite having their iCloud
| servers owned by the CCP, don't worry they won't get out of the
| EU.
| drooopy wrote:
| Apple investors would publicly crucify tim cook in the middle
| of their spaceship campus if he were to take the company out of
| Europe.
| jsnell wrote:
| Apple hasn't left _China_. They 'll rather compromise both
| their product vision and their Chinese users than then leave a
| market that's smaller (for them) than the EU.
| abhinavk wrote:
| They should totally allow users to jailbreak/root their device.
| This is what people were expecting, not Apple-authorized
| alternative stores.
|
| > If Apple backs down on their vision then they are no longer
| Apple.
|
| They already did it in China.
| hartator wrote:
| Shielding the Epic game store under a different account is not
| the bravest move from Epic.
|
| I would ban other Epic accounts if I was Apple.
| smoldesu wrote:
| Which Epic Games account would you prefer they use, the
| American one?
|
| If you want to talk about cowardly behavior, we should discuss
| Apple's anti-steering policy. At the root of this brouhaha is
| an indefensible double-standard that Apple cannot sustain in a
| fair market.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I wonder why Apple doesn't open up their platforms to have
| everything best on their devices instead of fighting and
| agonising developers and governments. Yes yes, the commission is
| nice but they might be killing the goose that lays the golden
| eggs.
|
| I mean, Apple is amazingly good in some areas but in some other
| areas their products are used only because they don't give a
| choice and they intent to keep it this way. They also want to
| control everything and provide all the services.
|
| A bit short sighted and futile IMHO because the competition is
| catching up with their user experience but Apple doesn't catch up
| as quickly with the "smart" bits of the modern tech.
|
| I recall a Steve Jobs speech about Apple doing a few things %20
| better and other things worse and how he intents to change this
| by embracing the industry standards because they simply can't do
| everything by themselves.
|
| I feel like Apple is doing the same mistake again where their
| products are becoming slightly better at few things and worse in
| others simply because you can't have the better stuff installed
| on Apple devices.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Steve hated industry standards.
|
| The only time he ever said anything else was when every web
| site in the world ran on flash and iphone couldn't do flash.
|
| Every iphone user was reminded daily about how kneecapped it is
| when they can't pull up the web site for the restaursnt to
| check hours or call up for a reservation. That kind of life
| experience was his _entire_ focus and his showpiece product
| failed utterly at it.
|
| And so he said flash is bad and html5 and pwa is the better way
| to do what flash does.
|
| Since then they only say anything even slightly similar only as
| a defense against monopoly charges about native apps "what? you
| can use pwas" but only on Safari and castrated functionality.
|
| If Steve could have sold a product that didn't even use the
| same tcp/ip and html as everyone else, he would have. The only
| time he allowed the tiniest shred of interoperability is when
| there is no way to sell the product without it.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Maybe the word he used wasn't "industry standards", I
| couldn't find the video now. The idea of the speech was that
| you can't do everything by yourself because you have just
| this much capacity and if you stretch yourself too much you
| end up with overall worse experience even if you do some
| things better. I think he was explaining why he is abandoning
| some internal Apple projects in favour of the established
| ones made by others.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Right but the point is he never said such things sincerely,
| only ever in service to some goal.
|
| He absolutely could not stand to share anything. But he
| could say anything necessary to attain goals.
| fancyham wrote:
| Flash WAS crappy - it had so many vulnerabilities (and
| probably would have run terribly on the early iPhones)
|
| Just as importantly, Apple and Steve learned not to rely on
| someone else's technology. PowerPC and all that (when
| Motorola stopped keeping up with Intel and Apple suffered)
|
| Look at things through this lens and their behavior over the
| past decade makes a lot of sense.
| serf wrote:
| flash was crappy, had poor compatibility and tons of
| vulnerabilities
|
| but it was replaced with.. nothing. and there is still a
| gap in that market for novice creators that all the
| webgl/html5/toolkit-of-the-week has yet to cater towards.
|
| Jobs interest in bad-mouthing it in the early days had more
| to do with cutting development costs on his side, if flash
| and adobe is the devil there is no need to spend time and
| effort developing compatibility layers for it, and it's a
| chance to wedge the populous towards a solution he can
| control more closely.
|
| 'vulnerabilities' was just the talking point he used to do
| so.
| musiccog wrote:
| > but it was replaced with.. nothing. and there is still
| a gap in that market for novice creators that all the
| webgl/html5/toolkit-of-the-week has yet to cater towards.
|
| The reason Flash (and Director before it) was so popular
| is that it had a very low barrier to entry for creatives.
|
| I still miss Director because of how easy it was to
| quickly create cross platform apps that could do just
| about anything.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Flash WAS crappy - it had so many vulnerabilities (and
| probably would have run terribly on the early iPhones)
|
| Flash was the great battery killer. I hated it on laptops.
| I'd have hated it on phones if it were available. I even
| hated it on desktops because it made the fans turn up.
| Sometimes more than a proper 3d native game that used all
| the hardware you could throw at it.
|
| Of course now we have Javascript and Unity games on the
| native side so we just changed what screws us up.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| "this lens" is quite transparent and no problem to
| understand at all. "makes a lot of sense" is not the
| question.
|
| Flash was crappy, but so what?
|
| The fact that flash was crappy didn't matter to him. If he
| wasn't artificially prevented by copyright, he could have
| and would have just wrote his own implementation that
| wasn't crappy.
|
| The only problem with flash was that Adobe did to him
| exactly the same thing he did to everyone else. Flash was a
| proprietary thing that didn't happen to work the way he'd
| like, and he wasn't allowed to just make his own better
| version, and so, "This needs to be an open standard!"
|
| That statement doesn't mean he endorsed or preferred or
| recognized the value and virtue of open standards. All it
| means is that he was a huge hypocrite who would say
| anything at any time, and actually do the opposite the
| instant he can devise a way to.
|
| He only ever recognized a standard when he is the
| beneficiary of it and there was no physically possible way
| to get around it, and only until he manages to devise a way
| to get around it.
|
| One day he says "bicycle for the mind" and that much is
| absolutely true.
|
| But the next day tries to sell a bicycle that the user
| can't repair or add a luggage rack, and conveniently
| declines to acknowledge that a large part of what makes a
| human with a bicycle so efficient is that the bicycle is
| simple and user-serviceable in the field and adaptable. The
| human is more efficient and powerful because they are
| literally empowered.
|
| The advantage of the wheels turn completely the other way
| into the disadvantage of a piece of broken machine you have
| to carry, after you also paid money to aquire it in the
| first place, when you can't fix it's bent wheel, or add a
| headlight or a luggage bag or a lower set of gears or
| fatter tires etc etc to adapt it to your individual
| slightly different needs.
|
| He _said_ "bicycle for the mind", but never sold a bicycle
| for the mind once.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > Steve hated industry standards.
|
| > The only time he ever said anything else was when every web
| site in the world ran on flash and iphone couldn't do flash.
|
| NeXTSTEP, the Steve Jobs thing that got renamed as Mac OS X
| when Apple bought it, was based on BSD Unix. In the early
| 2000s, Apple produced and used a lot of open standards.
| "Darwin" was open source. Bonjour is mDNS. Apple developed
| CUPS and open sourced it.
|
| Then they got big and greedy and stopped.
| pvg wrote:
| The BSD use in there wasn't because of love of standards
| but permissive licensing. Apple didn't develop CUPS.
| Apple's relationship with 'standards' has always been
| pretty complicated although it's mostly worked out for
| them.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| They used BSD because then it could run Unix/POSIX
| applications instead of the ~0 third party applications
| that would have existed for a new operating system.
|
| Apple hired the maintainer of CUPS and provided the
| resources necessary to make it good enough for the
| publishing market, while continuing to publish the source
| code. They had enough involvement in RFCs 5227, 5387,
| 6761, 6762 and 6886, among others, for their company name
| to be listed in the RFC.
| pvg wrote:
| The Unix 'applications' they got for free. The OS itself
| shipped with a bunch of apps plus the various bits and
| pieces that now form the Voltron of Xcode and those were
| all Nextstep apps. Did the Unix part help to market the
| thing as a workstation? Sure. But, again, this wasn't for
| love of standards. The actual machine didn't ship with
| X11. Next didn't, I dunno, join Motif or whatever. The
| thing was one of the more non-standard workstations
| around.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| X11 shipped on the OS X install discs.
| pvg wrote:
| X11 was as good as dead by then. It did not ship with
| Next machines.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| X11 didn't even exist when NeXT was founded and its
| contemporary predecessor wasn't available under the MIT
| license.
|
| It was often used in the early days of OS X before it had
| native applications because the X11 version was often
| better than using Classic, especially after the Intel
| transition basically killed Classic but not X11.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Could just as well say they stopped being desperate. They
| cobbled together what they needed from where they could.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| There are a lot of big companies that continue to produce
| and use open standards. In general it benefits them,
| because it's "commoditize your complement." Google sells
| advertising so they want web standards so that more
| things use the web and therefore Google ads. Intel sells
| server CPUs so they contribute to Linux to keep customers
| from being locked into proprietary Unix on proprietary
| RISC architectures.
|
| Doing the opposite is generally short-sighted. In the
| short term you lock customers in and make more money, but
| then you get everyone else in the industry lined up
| trying to find a way to cut you out, and eventually one
| of them succeeds.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| Oh sure. How compatible are IBM machines?
|
| They now run linux only because they simply have to. And
| so they do, in the least compatible way possible.
|
| Almost everyone tries to do this as much as possible, not
| just Apple.
|
| Initially everyone could make their own stuff 100%
| unique, hardware and software. Like the early HP
| machines, a total universe of their own. It's only over
| time that customers gradually insist on a few standards
| here and there after they get burned bad enough, and so
| some things get standard, but even then only incompletely
| and begrudgingly and always trying to find some way claw
| back or obsolete get around some other way.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| So now the truth.
|
| Adobe claimed that if Apple had let them, they could have
| gotten Flash running on the first iPhone that had 128Kb of
| RAM and a 400Mhz processor. Safari could barely run on the
| phone. If you scrolled fast, you would get a checkerbox while
| waiting for the page to render.
|
| When Adobe did finally bring Flash to mobile in 2010-2011 on
| Android, it required a 1Ghz processor and 1GB of RAM and it
| still ran badly. An iPhone with similar specs didn't come out
| until 2011.
|
| The iMac came with only USB in 1997 before most PCs fully
| adopted it. The original iPod played MP3s and later AAC files
| and even later standard H.264 and MPegs files.
|
| The original iPhone only supported HTML5.
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| An Andoid user could actually afford a phone that could run
| flash.
| misnome wrote:
| > That kind of life experience was his entire focus and his
| showpiece product failed utterly at it
|
| As did every other phone and tablet ecosystem, even the ones
| that tried to add flash. Turns out it was bloated, slow,
| insecure and battery hungry - all the reasons he stated!
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| He was always willing to use any true fact that served his
| goal.
|
| A rational position is different from a rationalization,
| even though they both involve making a rational statement
| along the way.
| izacus wrote:
| It is incredibly hard to change a culture of a corporation.
| Apple is not a thinking human, it's a bunch of people that have
| their own egos, preferences and wishes. It may not even be
| currently feasible to propose an idea like you have because the
| person doing so would be unpopular internally in Cupertino.
|
| Culture is hard. This is why you see corporations and
| businesses fail constantly despite "obvious" choices being
| ahead of them.
| amelius wrote:
| The point is not to create the best possible user experience.
|
| Apple's goal is to build the best possible vending machine and
| put it in all our pockets.
| pornel wrote:
| Tim Cook's Apple is all about increasing the Services Revenue.
| The line has to go up. Apple exists for their shareholders, not
| users.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _The line has to go up. Apple exists for their
| shareholders, not users._
|
| Who does Epic exist for?
|
| This "they exist for the shareholders" is an argument that
| cancels itself out, as it's true of all firms.
|
| So you have to look at who's next on the list. Is the company
| for people looking to place ads? Is the company for
| publishers of games? Who is it for?
| antisthenes wrote:
| #1 is major shareholders
|
| #2 is senior management and senior employees (so minor
| shareholders and OG value creators)
|
| #3 is probably a tossup between regular employees and
| customers, e.g. doing the bare minimum not to alienate
| either one.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| Epic is privately owned with Tim Sweeney having a majority.
| One man's whim is a lot more dynamic than a mass of public
| shareholders' expectations.
| pornel wrote:
| For a while Apple existed for Steve to make products he's
| proud of.
|
| I have a very deep resentment for the App Store, because
| that was a turning point towards controlling the platform,
| and start of a feudal relationship with developers.
|
| They've went from (half-assed) open source efforts to
| outright banning GPL completely. They've went from trying
| to use open protocols to putting DRM throughout entire
| stack on everything they could.
|
| Apple has been high margin company with expensive products,
| but arguably worth the cost if you appreciated their style
| and attention to detail. But the OS and services side has
| shifted to just extracting as much money as they can,
| because they can. Their 27% cut on purchases made outside
| of iOS is just pure greed and spite.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| I've argued before that Apple should've semi-opened up iOS in a
| way that they could manage it to their interests. Now they've
| forced the hand of regulators to do it instead.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32170848
| whimsicalism wrote:
| it didnt work for google, who is also in the sights of
| regulators despite having a considerbly more semi-open OS
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Maybe it would've delayed this for longer- less of a casus
| belli for the likes of Epic. Apple was lucky for avoiding
| App Store scrutiny for over a decade.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| If there is an anti-culture youth movement against iPhones,
| apple will be in _serious_ trouble. Their revenue is heavily
| dependent on selling iphones and people using the app store.
| freedomben wrote:
| Fortunately for Apple, there definitely is _not_ a movement
| against iPhones. If anything, the youth associate status with
| iphones, and if you don 't have one you are a loser deserving
| ridicule. My kids have stopped asking as they know I'm not
| going to give Apple any of my money, but for a very long time
| they begged for iphones because kids made fun of them for
| "having a droid." Today's youth are definitely not the
| rebellious counter-culture youth from my younger days. They
| are very much conformists.*
|
| *Speaking very generally of course, and only from anecdotal
| experience which is a very small slice of the market that my
| kids know
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Kids are fickle and run with trends though. Apple has a
| good foothold, for sure, but banking on teenagers to carry
| your banner is an idea that would have me sweating.
|
| Older people tend to care much less about what phone they
| have, and care much less about upgrading.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Apple should avoid destroying developer trust as developers
| aren't forced to write ios apps. Apple needs developers.
| cheeze wrote:
| Developers aren't forced to write any apps. They write apps
| where the revenue makes sense.
|
| And the revenue makes the most sense on ios for a large share
| of developers.
|
| 95%+ of developers don't care if Apple doesn't allow Epic on
| their store. That's just reality.
|
| If my boss tells me "we're launching an ios app" I'm not going
| to tell him about how I disagree with Apples principles and
| refuse to build it.
| charcircuit wrote:
| They care about their own accounts being deleted over some
| disagreement. The risk of having your account banned changes
| how you invest in the platform.
| darknavi wrote:
| > They care about their own accounts being deleted over
| some disagreement. The risk of having your account banned
| changes how you invest in the platform.
|
| I wish it did but it really doesn't. You can see countless
| "I lost my google account for a random reason" and yet
| everyone I know has a google account and probably uses
| gmail.
| mdhb wrote:
| No but a lot will start building PWAs wherever they can
| instead because they no longer need to write an entire second
| copy of their app that only runs in one place and can't share
| code and they don't have to just pay 30% of their revenue to
| someone for no good reason.
|
| Trust me, Apple pissing off developers is absolutely going to
| have serious implications for them.
| Seanambers wrote:
| Then they should just code for Android, stay there and
| leave us in the Apple Ecosystem alone.
|
| I have no effin need for a second store, or a third or a
| fifth.
| z3dd wrote:
| Well then, with that argument you can also stay with
| apple store and leave those second, third and fifth
| stores alone for those who want them.
| StrLght wrote:
| I am not sure I follow.
|
| What was stopping companies from doing PWAs before? Were
| they not annoyed at 30% cut? Was the cost of maintaining a
| separate app for a single platform too small to care about?
| abletonlive wrote:
| Trust me, you're overweighting how much your feelings
| matter in this and most developers simply do not give a
| shit.
| Despegar wrote:
| Epic perhaps thought Apple might show them grace after the
| lawsuit in the US. A kind of repeat of the Apple-Samsung
| litigation where everyone has a "it's just business" attitude and
| keeps doing business together while simultaneously suing each
| other. Apple on the other hand has decided they will show them no
| quarter. I don't think they're being emotional about it. I think
| it's to show every other developer that they will actually
| enforce the DPLA that everyone signs, and they won't turn the
| other cheek.
| lxgr wrote:
| Parts of Apple's DPLA are likely unenforceable in the EU going
| forward.
| akira2501 wrote:
| Attempting to enforce an "illegal" contract provision seems
| pretty "emotional" to me. Apple is finally in a position to
| lose their monopoly grip on a platform software store, and
| they clearly will stop at nothing to stop the loss of that
| revenue, this is obviously an existential problem for them.
| lxgr wrote:
| It certainly threatens their app store revenue, and by
| extension market value, so it's rational for them to push
| back, but by no means is it an "existential problem". Apple
| is quite a bit more than just the app store.
|
| There's probably risks on both sides here, too: Playing
| hardball with EU regulators and courts could cost them a
| lot of money.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > so it's rational for them to push back
|
| If your vision for your company only extends to the next
| quarterly earnings report, sure, it's "rational."
|
| If you consider the fact that every other participant in
| the market dislikes this practice, that this dislike has
| finally risen to the level of government involvement, and
| that laws are about to be written taking it away from
| you, then clutching it to your chest is best understood
| as an emotional position.
|
| It's rooted in a desire to not lose the past while
| attempting to deny that any other future could possibly
| exist. It's classic denial, on a trillion dollar
| corporate level.
| andersa wrote:
| Epic doesn't care whether Apple shows "grace", or needs them
| to, they are going in by force with the backing of the EU
| legislation. It might just take a year or two longer to get
| through the courts. They can hold out that long without any
| problems, preparing their store in the background.
| Despegar wrote:
| I'm not aware of any duty to deal in the DMA.
| Jensson wrote:
| You don't have a duty to hire in USA, but you can still get
| in trouble for illegally firing someone for the wrong
| cause. Same applies here, this isn't rocket science.
| Despegar wrote:
| Right, the major difference being that Epic is not an
| employee of Apple and thus cannot benefit from employment
| law. The terms of their relationship is governed by
| contract law, and now the DMA.
| Jensson wrote:
| DMA, Apple can't just retaliate for Epic complaining
| about them, this doesn't mean that Apple is forced to
| deal with everyone they are just banned from retaliating
| for certain things:
|
| > 6. The gatekeeper shall not directly or indirectly
| prevent or restrict business users or end users from
| raising any issue of non-compliance with the relevant
| Union or national law by the gatekeeper with any relevant
| public authority, including national courts, related to
| any practice of the gatekeeper. This is without prejudice
| to the right of business users and gatekeepers to lay
| down in their agreements the terms of use of lawful
| complaints-handling mechanisms.
|
| I am not 100% certain that would apply here, but if the
| DMA doesn't protect against these things then I am pretty
| sure that EU will plug that hole to ensure gatekeepers
| can't retaliate unfairly.
| giantrobot wrote:
| Even if the "hole" is plugged you'd have to prove in
| court you were being retaliated against. Vibes are not
| going to be enough. You'd need a decision maker's e-Mail
| saying "you know what, fuck Epic cancel their account".
| Without that smoking gun all Apple needs to do is show
| all the instances of Epic violating their contract. Same
| if they canceled your account because of violations.
| Jensson wrote:
| Here it is easy since Apple admitted to it. Them bringing
| up all of Epics recent criticism of them here works
| against them, it is like talking a lot about someone's
| race when you fire them, that doesn't look good in court
| even if you also gave another reason. For example firing
| someone with the reason "He was a lazy black guy" could
| be read as you firing him for being lazy, but I doubt
| courts would see it that way.
| threeseed wrote:
| You should read the US ruling [1]. This is not about Epic
| criticising Apple.
|
| This is because Epic did things like pushing a hidden IAP
| system inside Fortnite to evade review and then at a
| later point switching it on. This sort of thing has been
| forbidden since the early days of the App Store. It is a
| fundamental part of the Apple-Developer contract that you
| allow reviewers access to all functionality.
|
| [1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-
| courts/ca9/21...
| jsnell wrote:
| > 12. The gatekeeper shall apply fair, reasonable, and non-
| discriminatory general conditions of access for business
| users to its software application stores, online search
| engines and online social networking services listed in the
| designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9).
|
| Apple don't get to deny access to their main competitor in
| this space just as a show of force. That is not fair,
| reasonable or non-discriminatory.
| Despegar wrote:
| This will be another issue determined by EU courts, but
| Apple is not justifying it as a show of force. They're
| justifying it based on Epic's prior breach of contract
| and statements they've made. I think based on the record,
| courts will side with Apple.
| Jensson wrote:
| Why would a 4 year old breach of contract warrant a ban
| today instead of 4 years ago? The trigger was that Epic
| criticized Apple, that doesn't seem like a warranted
| reason to ban someone even if they did something bad 4
| years ago.
|
| Also since the DMA bans arrangement that Epic breached
| before, there is no reason to suspect that the EU account
| will breach anything new now, I really doubt EU will let
| this slide.
| threeseed wrote:
| > The trigger was that Epic criticized Apple
|
| Epic has been criticising Apple almost every single day.
| Jensson wrote:
| Apple themselves said that the trigger was Epic
| criticizing them.
| misnome wrote:
| ... according to Epic
| whimsicalism wrote:
| no, according to the emails that we can all read clear as
| day
| kemayo wrote:
| The email I've seen from Schiller presents it as a
| combination -- it says that Epic has previously broken
| its agreement with Apple because of disagreements about
| the rules, and that Epic has publicly disagreed loudly
| with Apple's DMA rules. The disagreement wouldn't be a
| problem without the history of violations.
|
| No idea where this will actually go with the EU
| regulator, but US courts said it was okay for Apple to
| keep Epic's developer account suspended based on this.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >Apple shared the following statement:
|
| >Epic's egregious breach of its contractual obligations
| to Apple led courts to determine that Apple has the right
| to terminate 'any or all of Epic Games' wholly owned
| subsidiaries, affiliates, and/or other entities under
| Epic Games' control at any time and at Apple's sole
| discretion.' _In light of Epic's past and ongoing
| behavior_ , Apple chose to exercise that right.
|
| emphasis mine.
| paulmd wrote:
| presumably apple's ban on epic games is for life, not
| just for a year or two. and registering a new account
| doesn't change that - it's just ban evasion.
|
| to wit: you are still banned from reddit or paypal or any
| other online service, even if you create a new account.
| if they can link it they'll ban that one too.
|
| and this is a new account that epic games tried to
| register recently. so it got banned too. Not that
| complex/hard a concept really, unless you're _trying not
| to understand it_.
|
| again, do you think you have a right to create a second
| reddit account after your first one got banned from the
| service? how about a bank account, do you get a do-over
| if you do some fraud and get your first account banned?
| Jensson wrote:
| > presumably apple's ban on epic games is for life, not
| just for a year or two. and registering a new account
| doesn't change that - it's just ban evasion.
|
| They didn't ban every epic account back then, just the
| violating account. I am pretty sure most of epic games
| accounts are still there, just the fortnite account got
| banned.
| realusername wrote:
| Apple has nothing on their side aside from a few tweets
| criticizing them, that just won't cut it as an exemption
| to the DMA. It's not like Epic released malware or
| anything.
|
| Remember that the whole goal of the DMA is that actors
| like Apple and Google can't decide to block competiton on
| a whim, the exact thing they are doing right now.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| According to the article, they have the official court
| ruling...
| realusername wrote:
| In the US and in most countries, sure that'll be enough
| but in the EU, the DMA superseded their contracts. Apple
| might have got away with it if they had limited the ban
| to outside the EU but as I understand, they didn't.
| jsnell wrote:
| They don't have a court ruling on this that has any
| relevance in Europe.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Since the article was talking about Epics worldwide
| license....
| jsnell wrote:
| The article is talking about the license for Epic's EU
| subsidiary, which would have been used to launch an app
| store only in EU (as the only region where Apple is
| obligated to make competing app stores possible). When
| the EC, and possibly later the courts, evaluate whether
| this is breaking the DMA, a US court ruling permitting
| the closure of Epic's developer accounts has no bearing.
|
| The EU is a sovereign entity, enforcing its own laws in
| its own territory. A US court ruling can't compel the EU
| to allow Apple to violate EU laws when operating in the
| EU. How would that even work?
| nozzlegear wrote:
| > The EU is a sovereign entity, enforcing its own laws in
| its own territory. A US court ruling can't compel the EU
| to allow Apple to violate EU laws when operating in the
| EU. How would that even work?
|
| In a word: treaties. Usual disclaimer that I'm not a
| lawyer yada yada, but treaties are generally why one
| country's laws or legal proceedings might affect another
| country in some way. Think stuff like US copyright law
| being applied to Europe [1]. I don't actually know how or
| _if_ anything would even apply in this specific scenario
| (not a lawyer and I think it 's pretty unlikely that the
| US court ruling would affect the EU DMA here), but
| treaties are what you'd look at to find out.
|
| [1] Technically those countries passed their own versions
| of the US law, but it's all hammered out in the World
| Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty.
| SllX wrote:
| Do EU courts consider sworn foreign testimony entirely
| inadmissible as evidence? It is a fact that Epic swore
| before a court of law, a foreign court but still a
| recognized court of law, that they did all this on
| purpose. EU law might still not allow for its submission
| into evidence, I don't know, but that isn't nothing
| either. Unless prohibited by law, a Judge in his
| professional judgement might still allow it.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Depends on the ruling, judge, and arguments. Law does pay
| attention to overseas precedence, but it's just another
| piece of evidence to consider, not final worldwide
| judgement.
|
| In the case here, Epic doing a behavior to go around a
| store policy that EU specifically is considering bad may
| mean they cast aside the US rulings.
| SllX wrote:
| I think we're at least 95% or more in agreement here.
| dwaite wrote:
| I suspect if the disagreement is in Epic refusing to
| commit to honoring a contract and the CEO referring to it
| as requiring "sworn fealty", the actual resolution would
| be for Apple to show the actual harm in a marketplace
| violating said contract.
|
| From there a lot of things can happen to negotiate a
| resolution, such as negotiating penalties for not
| following said contract.
|
| I don't think Epic will be able to convince a court that
| there is no resolution when Apple has already said before
| and now what they would require for Epic to resume their
| business relationship with Apple.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| The EU courts won't, nor will the Commission.
| threeseed wrote:
| a) It _is_ fair and non-discriminatory. Epic was found by
| the courts to have violated the terms of the agreement
| that they signed and Apple had the right to terminate it.
| They have done this with other developers as well.
|
| b) Epic is not their main competitor in anything.
| jsnell wrote:
| Have any other companies announced credible plans for a
| competing app store? I'm at least not aware of any, which
| would absolutely make Epic their main competitor.
|
| It is pretty hilarious how people think some US court
| judgement would have any relevance on EU anti-trust
| regulation.
| threeseed wrote:
| I think you're confused how this works.
|
| Apple doesn't need a court judgement to terminate a
| contract. They can just do it if they believe terms have
| been broken. Epic sued them in the US to reverse this
| decision and the courts found in favour of Apple. The
| process in the EU starts the same way.
|
| And this is a basic contractual dispute seperate from the
| DMA which is why the many other parties have not also had
| their contracts terminated.
|
| Also running an App Store is hard. It's going to take
| more than a few days to see competitors.
| jsnell wrote:
| Well, yes, clearly I think _you 're_ confused about how
| this works given you keep thinking that a US court ruling
| is going to overrule the DMA on EU soil.
|
| The entity that Epic will be complaining to about this
| will not be a US court. It will be the EC. The EC will
| look at the text and the intent of the DMA: to permit
| competing app stores. They'll also note that Apple has
| (arbitarily and without any technical justification) made
| a developer account a requirement for launching a
| competing app store. And finally, they'll note that Apple
| is terminating the developer accounts of the company most
| vocal about intending to launch a competing app store.
|
| It doesn't matter what text Apple has in their contract
| about how they're permitted to close developer accounts
| for any reason they want to. It doesn't matter that they
| have a courting ruling from some other country. Apple
| chose to gatekeep app store competition on membership in
| the developer program. To prevent this from being used as
| an end-run on the DMA, the EC just an't allow Apple to
| terminate the licenses on a flimsy pretext. And "Tim
| Sweeney tweeted mean things about us" is not going to
| work.
| threeseed wrote:
| a) No one has said that a US court ruling has
| jurisdiction over the EU. Developers have to sign
| seperate contracts in the countries that their apps are
| being sold in.
|
| b) Epic's actions e.g. pushing hidden IAP features were a
| fundamental breach of the contract in all countries where
| it was signed including EU. It was never about Epic
| criticising Apple.
|
| c) Apple takes the first move in terminating the
| contract. Then Epic sues. And then the EU legal system
| will settle the matter. That is the process.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| You keep hammering on point c but nobody in this thread
| has disagreed about the sequencing.
|
| a -> that is the clear implication of one of the above
| comments, ie. if it was a legsl use of the contract in
| the US that somehow will shield them from dma violation,
| but dma supersedes contracts
| whimsicalism wrote:
| How is that at all relevant to future litigation over the
| DMA, which is what this thread is discussing?
|
| It sounds like you lost the thread, not GP
| jimscard wrote:
| You're missing a key point by calling this a "competing
| app store". That's not what it would be. It would simply
| be Epic's app store with Epic's apps in it, the purpose
| being to maximize Epic's revenue on Epic's games. Apple,
| in case you haven't noticed, isn't a game company -- they
| don't compete with Epic. Microsoft does. Steam does.
| Apple doesn't. In fact, given that Epic games haven't
| been on iOS in ages, there's literally zero competition
| even there.
|
| It's kind of silly to think that other companies that
| actually compete with Epic would choose to publish via
| the Epic store, since they'd just be giving money to
| their competitor. Either they'll build their own stores
| or they'll continue business as usual, using the device
| manufacturer's stores.
|
| To your other point, while a US court judgement is
| unlikely to have direct relevance to EU regulation, it
| does help establish a pattern of behavior on Epic's part.
|
| It's also important to note that the provisions for
| establishing an alternative app store are designed to
| protect the _consumer_. Repeated violations of
| contractual agreements is clear evidence of a company's
| untrustworthiness, and it would be irresponsible for
| Apple to do anything other than exercise the termination
| clause as a result..
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Apple absolutely competes with Epic. Mobile in general
| and iOS in particular are massive markets, both player
| base and profit wise, for gaming.
|
| On iOS apple has decreed that they deserve 30% of that
| action. And is now banning the developer of one of the
| most popular games (on any platform).
| threeseed wrote:
| By that definition every app developer is a competitor.
|
| And Apple is basically a trillion dollar company. Tens of
| millions in lost revenue from Epic isn't going to cause
| them to lose any sleep at night.
| troupo wrote:
| > By that definition every app developer is a competitor.
|
| In a sense, yes. The term "sherlocked (by Apple)" exists
| because Apple routinely releases its own version of
| various apps
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| It's not about these tens of million, it's about control
| over _all_ of the money, and about control of everything
| on the device more broadly.
| jsnell wrote:
| No, it wouldn't be an Epic-only store.
|
| One reason we know this is that Epic Games Store on PC
| isn't Epic-only.
|
| Another reason we know it is that Apple has (arbitrarily)
| forbidden app stores that aren't open to third parties.
| Even if Epic wanted to make it a first-party only store
| (why?), they couldn't.
|
| You claim that Apple isn't a gaming company. It's true
| that Apple doesn't really develop or publish games. But
| the App Store is the world's largest games store, larger
| than e.g. any of the console games stores or Steam. Every
| estimate I can find is that significantly more than half
| the App Store revenue is from games.
|
| Finally, you suggest that nobody would publish games on
| Epic's store. That might be true on iOS just due to the
| unreasonable terms Apple set for that (in particular the
| core platform fee), but it certainly won't be true due to
| competitors not wanting to give 12% to Epic rather than
| 30% to Apple. This fear hasn't stopped companies from
| publishing their games on the PC EGS.
|
| Apple _claim_ that all their requirements are there just
| to protect the consumers. They might be telling the
| truth, they might be lying and actually just want to make
| life as hard as possible for the competing app stores. It
| 's hard for anyone on the outside to be sure which. But
| terminating the developer account of the most credible
| competitor on the day DMA enforcement starts is a pretty
| bad look, and makes it quite hard to believe Apple's
| story on why the requirements exist.
| dwaite wrote:
| Yes, such as MacPaw's SetApp marketplace.
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/29/24086792/setapp-
| subscript...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| "it happened via operation of private contract so it is
| thus presumptively fair and non-discriminatory" is not
| how the DMA works, at all.
| SllX wrote:
| Epic also intentionally broke agreements with Apple
| before. Non-discriminatory doesn't mean they have no
| grounds to terminate Epic's developer accounts, and Epic
| is continuing to make themselves look untrustworthy by
| trying to publicly and explicitly shank Apple. Spotify is
| also trying to shank Apple in all the same places Epic
| is, but they also didn't go behind Apple's back to
| deceive the prior review process in contravention to a
| signed agreement, file suit and spin-out a pre-prepared
| publicity stunt-filled PR campaign and then go on to
| court to testify that all of that was done on purpose.
| Tim Sweeney and Epic did.
|
| It sucks because I was hoping this fight was basically in
| the rear-view mirror now, but it's hard to argue Apple
| has no grounds for calling Epic untrustworthy and not
| even maintaining an arms-length business relationship in
| one jurisdiction with them. Who's to say Epic wouldn't
| try something similar again? Apple can still set terms
| under the DMA, and Tim has been publicly campaigning that
| these terms violate the DMA which isn't actually his call
| to make.
|
| Also one other point:
|
| > Apple don't get to deny access to their main competitor
| in this space
|
| As of today, and yesterday, and going back to the dawn of
| the iPhone: Epic isn't anything in "this space" let alone
| Apple's main competitor. They have stated that they
| _intend_ to compete, and want to compete with Apple in
| this space, but Epic's iPhone app marketplace is
| vaporware. It hasn't shipped, it doesn't look like
| they're going to be able to ship now, and in its entire
| history of being discussed, has earned Epic EUR0.00 to
| date.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| >Epic also intentionally broke agreements with Apple
| before.
|
| This is funny to point out since they did it specifically
| to sue over it (you pretty much can't other wise).
|
| So Apple has their draconian 30% cut or there's literally
| no other way to have an application run on iOS policy,
| you can't challenge it without breaking it so you can
| sue, and because you broke it to sue you are now
| permanently barred from every making another iOS app.
|
| Yea that seems fine, no monopolistic behavior here, it's
| only 49% of the phone market so it's fine.
| SllX wrote:
| They had the alternative of pulling their software on
| principle and suing, but they wanted the fight they would
| have by having Apple suspend and then terminate their
| developer accounts to bring more public opinion to their
| side, and they sure got the fight. As a developer
| enrolled in the program, it would have been hard to argue
| they didn't have standing as long as what they were
| arguing had plausible legal merit (it did, it may not
| have been the winning argument in the end, but it was at
| least plausible at the beginning and they won on one
| count).
|
| The goal wasn't just to sue Apple, it was to shank Apple
| with one hand while filing suit with another and they had
| multiple opportunities to get their account unsuspended
| at the beginning of the lawsuit even while the case
| proceeded, before it was eventually terminated.
| echelon wrote:
| There is no alternative to mobile computing. Both vendors
| have draconian rules.
|
| These are devices so essential to modern functioning that
| the regulators need to come and tell both Apple and
| Google that unlimited web installs are user rights.
|
| Epic is right. Apple and Google are monopolies over an
| entire class of computing, and it's a 100% artificial
| racket.
| SllX wrote:
| > These are devices so essential to modern functioning
| that the regulators need to come and tell both Apple and
| Google that unlimited web installs are user rights.
|
| This might be what you _want_ but without new
| legislation, because the DMA ain't saying what you want,
| regulators are not within their rights to impose this
| requirement.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| You can sideload apks on Android and have alternate app
| stores too. I don't think the situations are in anyway
| similar or comparable.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Agreed. Google's lock-in is much more through bundling
| and must-default agreements.
| echelon wrote:
| > You can sideload apks
|
| Just because you can ask your users to build a nuclear
| fission reactor, doesn't mean that they can or will.
|
| F-droid gets ~3M MAU, with a 70% bounce rate. It's
| pitiful.
|
| This is a pathetic case for mobile rights and freedom.
| Practically nobody knows how to make use of this model.
|
| Installing software should be first class, not buried in
| the settings. It shouldn't have scare walls, either.
|
| Google knows exactly what they're doing with the
| "freedom" they're letting end users have. 0.1% of users
| even know about or can leverage it.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _They had the alternative of pulling their software on
| principle and suing, but they wanted the fight they would
| have by having Apple suspend and then terminate their
| developer accounts to bring more public opinion to their
| side_
|
| I think that gave them much stronger standing and claimed
| damages.
|
| It's a weaker argument if they _voluntarily_ removed
| themselves from the AppStore.
|
| Apple could have trotted out some 'We typically work well
| with developers in Epic's situation, but they never
| approached us so there was nothing we could do' excuse.
|
| By forcing Apple to take an action, it concretely showed
| that Apple does in fact remove access if companies tried
| to forward users to alternate payment methods.
| SllX wrote:
| Sure, maybe this was the better strategy given either
| strategy was going to be a long shot, but they high
| rolled for what was ultimately a contract renegotiation
| and lost worse than if they had played their cards
| differently. Higher risk can mean higher rewards, but in
| this case it just worked out to be a bigger loss. They
| were never entitled to the outcome they fought for, but
| it was their right to fight for it and Apple's right to
| defend themselves and their policies.
| overgard wrote:
| I realize the gravity is a lot less here, but consider
| Civil Rights protests where people intentionally but
| peacefully broke (bad) laws in protest. I would consider
| what Epic did in a similar way.
| threeseed wrote:
| > This is funny to point out since they did it
| specifically to sue over it (you pretty much can't other
| wise).
|
| This is simply wrong.
|
| Many have sued Apple over the legalities of the
| development agreement over the decades. They just always
| lose.
|
| And Epic could've chosen to follow Spotify and lobby
| behind the scenes but instead chose the PR move.
| barelysapient wrote:
| > Yea that seems fine, no monopolistic behavior here,
| it's only 49% of the phone market so it's fine.
|
| iPhone marketshare in the EU is about 22%.
| concinds wrote:
| > This is funny to point out since they did it
| specifically to sue over it (you pretty much can't other
| wise).
|
| Are you a lawyer? You sound awfully assertive in making
| this claim, especially with the slight
| contempt/patronizing tone.
| Terretta wrote:
| > _So Apple has their draconian 30% cut_
|
| This notion that 30% is 'draconian' is curious since
| Steam -- on supposedly open PC -- costs devs more, and
| even 30% is wrong since it's not 30% below a certain
| revenue level or in the second year onwards, again in
| line or less than stores on other platforms.
| dns_snek wrote:
| The PC isn't "supposedly" open, but open. Steam do
| collect a 30% fee but crucially, _they have to work for
| that fee_ by competing on core service quality and
| quality of life features (like cloud saves).
|
| Apple is perfectly entitled to ask for a 30% fee, as long
| as they allow for competition on equal footing (for
| clarity, this means they don't try to collect exorbitant
| rent from their competitors first). Let the free market
| sort it out.
| throwaway-blaze wrote:
| It's not 49% of the phone market in the EU. More like
| 36%, and in some markets like Italy and Spain, far far
| smaller.
| bonestamp2 wrote:
| I'm not a lawyer so please excuse this potentially dumb
| question, but why do they have to break the agreement to
| sue them?
| bsimpson wrote:
| Epic does have a history as an app store. They are the
| main competitor to Steam on Windows, famous for giving
| away games every week to drive traffic.
| SllX wrote:
| Apple doesn't compete with the Epic Games Store on
| Windows anymore than the Epic Games Store competes with
| the App Store on iPhones.
|
| EDIT: just realized I originally mixed up Origin and the
| Epic Games Store. My bad.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >Origin competes with the App Store on iPhones.
|
| I guess we'll see in the light of the DMA. Apple didn't
| allow EA to compete before, but who knows now.
|
| But this seems to be missing the point. Epic Games wants
| to put their store on mobile, they had android on the
| roadmap for years. They very much want to compete.
| SllX wrote:
| First, thank you for posting this because this was my
| first clue that I mixed up EA's thing with Epic's thing.
| My bad.
|
| Second, wanting to compete and competing aren't the same
| activity. They are not presently a competitor to the
| iPhone's App Store. They _may_ become a competitor in the
| future, pending presumably at least some discussions
| between Apple, the EC and Epic, and possibly a legal
| fight, but calling them an app marketplace competitor in
| the present-tense is not accurate nor justifiable.
| stefan_ wrote:
| These words have a specific, narrow meaning and your
| laymans impression is the opposite of helpful in
| interpreting them.
| SllX wrote:
| In the context of standards essential patents, yes. In
| the case of DMA compliance, it's a bit more TBD until the
| EC issues more guidance and actual legal precedent is
| set, but what we do know is that the DMA still allows
| Apple to set terms that 3rd parties must both agree with
| and abide by which means having an active developer
| account with Apple. If Apple believes Epic will not abide
| by the terms in good faith, they don't have any reason to
| maintain a relationship with Epic, and Epic has given
| Apple plenty of reasons.
|
| The real and interesting question is whether they can do
| this before they prove Epic's non-compliance with the new
| terms.
| overgard wrote:
| I find it hard to see Apple being in the right here.
| While I'm not so naive as to think one company is "good"
| and the other "bad", I do think that as developers Epic
| is fighting for our best interests. Apple's app store
| monopoly serves only Apple.
| dwaite wrote:
| I do not. Tim Sweeney testified that had Apple offered a
| special deal just for Epic, they would have taken it.
| overgard wrote:
| Maybe I should rephrase that, they're indirectly fighting
| for our best interest. Obviously their motives are
| selfish, but their wins are generally good for the rest
| of us in this context.
| SllX wrote:
| In the right and within their rights are two separate
| things. I'm not exactly happy with all of Apple's App
| Store policies either, but they have their rights.
|
| I also don't believe Epic is doing this for anything
| other than Epic's self-interest. They have no duty to
| other developers, and this is a potentially new line of
| business for them, not a liberation of iPhone app
| developers.
| concinds wrote:
| Criticize Apple vigorously and criticize Epic vigorously.
| Epic's been fined for dark patterns, data collection on
| minors below 13, and their entire business model relies
| on getting children to buy worthless cosmetic skins out
| of peer pressure, while optimizing for engagement and
| addiction. It's a predatory business model that should be
| illegal.
|
| One of their main goals in bypassing IAP _is to make
| these microtransactions non-refundable_ , so parents are
| screwed. They're the great satan.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| That's very much a Pyrrhic victory if Eoic doesn't have
| access to the US market. The court ruling in the US said that
| Apple has the right to terminate their account.
|
| From the linked article
|
| > This judgment stated that "Apple has the contractual right
| to terminate its DPLA with any or all of Epic Games' wholly
| owned subsidiaries, affiliates, and/or other entities under
| Epic Games' control at any time and at Apple's sole
| discretion."
| andersa wrote:
| This is about Epic having access to the EU market.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| That's why it's a Pyrrhic victory. They have access to
| the EU market which is much less profitable than the US
| market.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Pyrrhic implies that the battle is over. I see it more as
| a foothold for a much longer battle. I'm sure North
| America and Asia aren't ignoring this whole ordeal.
|
| It should also be noted that this article specifically
| talks about Epic's Sweden AB account being banned. It
| doesn't affect the state of the US account (which may
| very well be banned anyway).
| ben_w wrote:
| > Pyrrhic implies that the battle is over
|
| Other way around, "victory" implies the battle is over,
| Pyrrhic as a modifier implies a victory that inflicted
| such a devastating toll that it was tantamount to defeat.
| jimmySixDOF wrote:
| Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account (USA)(2020)
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24309632
| lamontcg wrote:
| Yeah, its really weird to appeal to the noble intentions of a
| corporation.
|
| They're both just engaged in business.
|
| I can believe that Apple is acting incredibly badly in this
| case without needing to fluff up Epic Games at all.
|
| Apple and Samsung could sue each other and do business with
| each other because the stakes were lower and they were more
| codependent.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| > Yeah, its really weird to appeal to the noble intentions
| of a corporation. They're both just engaged in business.
|
| This is what's wrong with the current overly capitalist
| system. Companies are totally allowed to have no
| conscience, and externalise whatever they please to
| consumers and the environment. And you could even argue
| they are 'forced' to do so by due diligence legislation.
|
| If we let this continue there will be no world left to fix.
| We have to change the game. I'm not saying we should go
| full communism. Capitalism isn't bad but there needs to be
| a balance between business and society with actual
| accountability (rather than the current 'green' initiatives
| basically just being PR without any kind of enforcement).
| It can't be all about money.
|
| I think for US culture it's hard to imagine doing this but
| here in Europe society has always had this balance, at
| least in most countries. Initiatives like RoHS, GDPR,
| DSA/DMA are often called anticompetitive but we are
| actually trying to improve things for the benefit of
| society, not just the shareholders.
| lamontcg wrote:
| > Companies are totally allowed to have no conscience
|
| I don't think companies are going to form a conscience
| any time soon.
|
| We need to deal with the fact that they're best viewed as
| being inherently sociopathic and regulate them
| effectively.
| fsflover wrote:
| If you want to dedicate your company to a purpose over
| profit, it should be something like this:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_purpose_corporation
| hwillis wrote:
| That's just the opposite kind of naive. Companies are still
| for the most part run by CEOs, and many of those CEOs have
| tremendous egos and most of them have a tremendous ability
| to direct the actions of those companies. Look at Tesla and
| Twitter lawsuits- they're clearly in Musks's interests.
|
| Companies aren't minds of their own directing their own
| actions. Tim cook or some other high level executive is
| deciding these actions. Stop abrogating the direction of
| the literal directors
| jeffwask wrote:
| As long as Forkknife continues to print money, they can
| afford the battle.
| dwaite wrote:
| Apple is asking for a clear commitment to honor its contract
| this time. I'm pretty sure a court ruling on reinstating the
| account isn't going to also require a clear commitment to
| honor the contract.
| mattmaroon wrote:
| I think with Samsung, Apple had little choice. If you need to
| buy over 200 million high res mobile screens per year you have
| very few choices. Exact numbers on Samsung's end aren't readily
| available, but semiconductor components are by far their
| biggest segment and Apple is probably their only significant
| external customer.
|
| I am absolutely sure Apple would love to cut Samsung off at the
| knees, but not if they do it to themselves at the same time.
| Samsung poses a much greater threat to Apple than all the third
| party app stores that could be dreamed up.
|
| It's a really interesting mutually assured destruction
| situation.
|
| Epic and Apple, on the other hand, can both be fine without
| each other, so I wouldn't expect them to work through the
| animosity
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Epic is sending a strong signal to regulators that they're
| malicious, and can't be trusted to police themselves. It's a
| terrible look under the circumstances.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Epic is learning the lesson that Nvidia had to learn. Apple holds
| grudges. Honestly, it was idiotic of them to expect anything
| else. Maybe they thought that they were more Samsung-like and
| after being a huge pain to apple, life will resume normalcy.
| Apple needed Samsung. They do not need Epic.
| paulmd wrote:
| people really think bumpgate was about some issue _that also
| affected AMD too_ and not closing the door on NVIDIA building a
| platform inside Apple 's platform and shifting the balance of
| power?
|
| you've been reading way too much semiaccurate lol
|
| https://blog.greggant.com/posts/2021/10/13/apple-vs-nvidia-w...
|
| like, we have the benefit of a decade of retrospect and watched
| nvidia do exactly the thing that apple refuses to let their
| partners ever do (namely: wear the pants in the relationship),
| and you're still taking charlie's takes at face value. Do you
| really think it's the bumps and not Apple taking action to
| protect themselves and their future products against the threat
| of competitive lock-in posed by NVIDIA and CUDA?
|
| it is just amazing that people _continue_ to take the guy
| seriously. How is that "NVIDIA is 4+ years behind AMD in the
| mid-term, and GV100 and GP100 are bumpgate 2.0" working out for
| you? Was ~2015-2020 a good period for Radeon Group?
|
| https://www.semiaccurate.com/2013/05/20/nvidias-volta-gpu-ra...
|
| https://www.semiaccurate.com/2015/05/19/amd-finally-talks-hb...
|
| https://www.semiaccurate.com/2016/05/03/thing-go-bumpgate-in...
|
| https://www.semiaccurate.com/2016/06/08/nvidia-p100-gpu-upda...
|
| https://www.semiaccurate.com/2016/08/01/nvidia-finally-shows...
|
| https://www.semiaccurate.com/2014/09/15/amds-mantle-api-goin...
|
| it's amazing that people will sniff out a MLID quote from a
| thousand paces and yet still uncritically babble Charlie's
| nonsense like it's the word of god. Dude is a stopped clock who
| occasionally happens to be correct in his NVIDIA/Intel
| hatewagon, and that's given him enough reputability that he's
| apparently beyond reproach with a significant portion of the
| Gaming Public (tm) who are just looking for reasons to be upset
| about NVIDIA/Intel.
| munk-a wrote:
| Grudges are unproductive and bring no benefit to the
| shareholder - this move is almost certainly going to result in
| a lawsuit that Epic would be in a good position in (assuming
| there aren't massive skeletons in the closet). This is an
| irrational move - especially in an election year when
| politicians have a lot to gain by demonizing late stage
| capitalism.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _late stage capitalism_
|
| The folks who were using this term are being successfully
| primaried.
| justin66 wrote:
| > Apple holds grudges. Honestly, it was idiotic of them to
| expect anything else.
|
| I'm sure upon first hearing this news Epic's management
| collectively lay down and curled up into the fetal position,
| awestruck and weeping in surprise at the sheer, unprecedented
| nature of this blow.
| benced wrote:
| Even setting aside the dubious morality of Apple's rules on iOS,
| I feel like I'm going insane watching Apple be maximally
| aggressive. The EU loves regulating! There's nothing they love
| more! It seems supremely unwise to give them additional excuses
| to do something they clearly want to do anyways.
| patrickmcnamara wrote:
| Regulatory accelerationism. I never thought it would come from
| Apple.
| matt_s wrote:
| > Apple be maximally aggressive
|
| From an observation standpoint seeing how Microsoft behaved in
| the 90's and onward, they (Apple) are behaving very similarly -
| almost exactly with what MS did for Windows back then. I have a
| growing distaste for Apple corporate/mgmt each day even though
| I am surrounded by their devices.
| __loam wrote:
| Apple has been dragged kicking and screaming into more
| consumer friendly positions since the iPhone was released. It
| took years for them to simply switch to a more open charging
| port standard.
| swores wrote:
| Not just years, it took a law requiring it to happen.
| chgs wrote:
| Before the iPhone and maybe blackberry the majority of
| phones used random proprietary charger. The iPhone was the
| first mass market consumer phone to come with a cable that
| connected to a standard usb charger.
| jwells89 wrote:
| > The iPhone was the first mass market consumer phone to
| come with a cable that connected to a standard usb
| charger.
|
| And had a device end connector that didn't change every
| other model. Some phones used standard connectors for
| that but plenty didn't, and manufacturers would sometimes
| change the connector without rhyme or reason.
| roneythomas6 wrote:
| My Sony Xperia phone had a cable that connected to
| standard usb charger, this was before the first iPhone.
| From my memory Moto Razr 2 used micro usb b cable to
| standard usb. There where plenty of phones before iPhone
| that had charging cable that connected to standard usb
| charger.
| Muromec wrote:
| I'm pretty sure my motorolas had a usb charger on device
| side before iPhone was a thing .
| sircastor wrote:
| While I think they should've switched earlier, it's often
| forgotten how angry people got when Apple switched from the
| 30 pin connector to Lightning. There were piles and piles
| of devices that used the 30 pin connector - it had been on
| every iPod, iPad and iPhone for nearly a decade. Entire
| hotel chains had iPod Docks in every room. Switching cost
| isn't limited to just goes in the device. It doesn't
| surprise me that Apple was hesitant to switch the port
| again.
| InsomniacL wrote:
| Transfer speeds by year 2001 USB: 480Mb/s
| 2012 Lightening 480Mb/s 2023 USB 80,000 Mb/s
| 2023 Lightening 480 Mb/s
|
| Apple wasn't hesitant, they knew it was an inevitable
| switch so never invested in to Lightening.
|
| They were quite happy knowing once you bought Apple, you
| kept Apple or you lost all your accessories.
|
| They're still playing the same game now. My Airpods work
| grate on iPhone, but they only connect to some non-apple
| devices over bluetooth (not PS5), and when they do
| connect, if the mic is on the audio is awful.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| And like MS they will just pay a few billions in PR and Foss
| to make a come back in 10 years and all will be forgiven.
|
| They will get away with this, we let them. They have no
| incentive to be better.
| Muromec wrote:
| Microsoft already notified EC that they stop their browser
| shenanigans and will ship windows without their browser
| pre-installed to save on endless lawyering game they can't
| win.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _watching Apple be maximally aggressive_
|
| Sweeney allegedly tweeted that he would breach his contract
| with Apple. Apple reached out and asked if he was being
| hysterical for public display. He didn't clarify. At that
| point, Epic credibly threatened breach of contract.
|
| This is a commercial dispute between multi-billion dollar
| companies, both of whom charge outrageous platform fees, both
| of whom seem to enjoy being dramatic, and both of whom are
| being maximally aggressive. It's fair to remain emotionally
| uninvolved.
| minimaxir wrote:
| > At that point, Epic credibly threatened breach of contract.
|
| A _threat_ of a breach of contract is not a breach of
| contract, which will be a sticking point if the EU gets
| involved again.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _threat of a breach of contract is not a breach of
| contract_
|
| I don't know EU law. But anticipatory breach is enough to
| trigger damages under American law, and "is an excuse for
| non-performance by the non-breaching party" [1].
|
| [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/anticipatory_breach
| izacus wrote:
| There's nothing about some random contracts I can see in
| DMA. DMA however does say that the gatekeeper (Apple)
| isn't allow to block or retaliate against competitors. Or
| users for that matter.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _nothing about some random contracts I can see in DMA_
|
| There are laws other than the DMA?
|
| (Anticipatory breach is incorporated into EU law through
| the UN CISG [1].)
|
| [1]
| https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/16247_2020_13
| benced wrote:
| This is flatly false.
|
| Schiller emailed Sweeney asking for assurances and Sweeney
| responded with:
|
| > Epic and its subsidiaries are acting in good faith and will
| comply with all terms of current and future agreements with
| Apple, and we'll be glad to provide Apple with any specific
| further assurances on the topic that you'd like.
|
| Without reply, Apple summarily terminated their developer
| account a week later. It seems obvious, in retrospect, that
| Schiller's email's goal was to establish a fig leaf of Apple
| having reached out before doing this.
|
| It is indeed true that Sweeney has tweeted many criticisms of
| Apple's DMA plans but there haven't been any threatening
| noncompliance.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _there haven 't been any threatening noncompliance_
|
| Do we have neutral sources for these claims and emails?
|
| Apple said Sweeney threatened to breach contract and didn't
| repudiate in private. Epic claims it didn't threaten and
| _did_ repudiate. We're in a he said she said absent
| independent sourcing.
| jsnell wrote:
| Epic provided screenshots of the emails. Are you
| seriously suggesting there's even the tiniest chance
| they're forgeries?
| benced wrote:
| The emails are from this post
| (https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/apple-
| terminated-e...).
|
| The source for the tweets (from your original comment:
| "Sweeney allegedly tweeted that he would breach his
| contract with Apple") are Sweeney's Twitter feed which
| you can read as well as I did. Did you find any
| threatening non-compliance?
| ben_w wrote:
| Perhaps it's just me, but my gut says that EpicGames dot
| com might, possibly, just might, not be an entirely
| neutral source on the topic of "was Epic naughty?"
|
| Even with screenshots, and assuming no false claims
| (which IIRC are entirely legal so long as you don't swear
| under oath), there's plenty of ways to mislead by
| omission while saying only true things.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > It is indeed true that Sweeney has tweeted many
| criticisms of Apple's DMA plans but there haven't been any
| threatening noncompliance.
|
| Let's not forget that Epic has _previously breached
| contract with Apple in the past_. That's why Fortnite isn't
| in the store today.
|
| Surely this must be the true source of Apples suspicion?
| itsdrewmiller wrote:
| Epic has a 12% fee, while Apple has a 30% fee - I don't think
| those are equally outrageous and I would go so far as to say
| one is extremely reasonable.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Epic has a 12% fee, while Apple has a 30% fee_
|
| Epic's fee is global. Once you sign with them, you pay that
| on every install. There is also the 5% royalty, which
| brings the actual fee to 17% since we're comparing non-
| small developer figures.
| itsdrewmiller wrote:
| The 5% royalty is for using the unreal engine - they
| don't enforce that the engine be used in order to appear
| in their game store, nor do they enforce that unreal
| engine games can only be sold on their game store.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The outrageous part of Epic's model is the global
| application.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| What is the alternative to global application?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Charging per install through their store. Like Apple does
| (or used to).
| elpool2 wrote:
| Do you have a link to the tweet from Sweeney saying he would
| breach the contract?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| No. Graham says it's this one [1]. I see no threat of
| breach, so if that's in fact the tweet, Cook is off his
| meds.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1765431238985187525
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| Yes but there's two of them, and they're competing against
| each other.
|
| That increases consumer choice and weakens the market power
| of both.
| izacus wrote:
| Having worked for many bosses, never ever never undersestimate
| the power of ego of an executive. It's only second to the ego
| of a lawyer.
|
| Many of them will tank their company and their client if they
| get their ego bruised and feel publicly humiliated. Those are
| hyper competitive people which see live as zero sum game and
| are trained in life to never, ever, lose a challenge or
| competition for domination. ESPECIALLY in public.
|
| The myth of a rational businessman is just that - a myth.
|
| Being publicly regulated is exactly that scenario for Apple.
| There's execs in that very company that are frothing at their
| mouth in irrational anger ready to throw their weight around
| and WIN. Stomp on the opponent. SPLAT the unimportant fly that
| DARED challenge them.
|
| (I'm exaggerating... but not by much. This seems more of an
| emotional than thoughtful response Apple is doing here.)
| benced wrote:
| It's hard to avoid any conclusion but this one.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| What if, and hear me out, execs could go to jail instead of
| just their company paying fines as if they're parking
| tickets? Would they still be as cocky?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _execs could go to jail instead of just their company
| paying fines as if they 're parking tickets?_
|
| You want to send an executive to jail for cancelling a
| contract?
|
| I'd be curious for a jurisdiction to try this. In my
| opinion, I wouldn't want to do business in a place where
| commercial disputes can be twisted by a political insider
| into jail time.
| izacus wrote:
| Do you also not drive a car in a place where your driving
| can be twisted into jail time when you hurt people?
|
| Why does the concept of personal responsibility for
| decisions insult you so deeply?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Do you also not drive a car in a place where your
| driving can be twisted into jail time when you hurt
| people?_
|
| If you believe figurative and actual violence are
| identical, this analogy makes sense.
| gray_-_wolf wrote:
| People can and do go to the prison in many instances when
| companies are just fined for similar offense.
| geodel wrote:
| What are those kind of offense which company or
| individual commit equally?
| munk-a wrote:
| Economic violence is a form of violence - it isn't
| identical to physical violence... but violence can take
| many forms.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _violence can take many forms_
|
| This is a bogus modernist interpretation that dilutes the
| meaning of violence. Fortunately, it's being rejected
| after having a moment that peaked during lockdown.
| lostlogin wrote:
| Earlier in the threat someone mentions PG & E and how
| their negligence resulted in deaths.
|
| How should this be treated? Fining the company for
| someone's actions that caused deaths doesn't seem enough.
| izacus wrote:
| People go to jail for non-violent crimes as well.
|
| Again, why does personal responsibility for harm to
| others bother you?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why does personal responsibility for harm to others
| bother you?_
|
| Personal responsibility is irrelevant. You're
| constructing a lower threshold for criminality. I know
| the first thing I'd be trying to figure out is how to put
| my competitors in jail.
|
| Let's take Epic v Apple. Epic went to court. It lost.
| This entire saga has cost Epic's shareholders billions.
| Should Sweeney go to jail? Would the world be better if
| an Apple-friendly prosecutor could take up that
| challenge?
|
| If we have a cultural failing in America, it's having a
| reflexive urge to turn outrage into jail time.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > I know the first thing I'd be trying to figure out is
| how to put my competitors in jail.
|
| Provide an incentive for companies to regulate each
| other! Let rational self-interest clean up the market
| while the state steps back and looks on!
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Provide an incentive for companies to regulate each
| other_
|
| Do you think there is a reason every modern democracy
| resists privatising criminal prosecution? (They had it in
| Rome. We probably need a history of law section in the
| basic high-school curriculum.)
| Apocryphon wrote:
| The justice system in this hypothetical would not be
| private, it's just that companies would be trying to sue
| each other for breaking the rules, accidentally advancing
| the public interest.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _companies would be trying to sue each other for
| breaking the rules_
|
| We already have private enforcement of many rules.
| Environmental ones, for example. We're specifically
| discussing criminality, putting people in jail.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Fair enough. I just see it as an escalation in
| deterrence.
| lostmsu wrote:
| Does not this already happen in case of fraud pretty much
| everywhere?
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Fair enough, no jail time then but how about the personal
| liability in money. You fuck up, it's your own money you
| gotta pay with, not the company's bottomless war-chest.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it 's your own money you gotta pay with, not the
| company's_
|
| I agree with this, and it could be constructed out of
| shareholder rights. Perhaps it could only be applied past
| a certain threshold of compensation, say, 100x the median
| wage. ($4.6mm [1].)
|
| I'd argue the threshold should be final, unappealable
| regulatory penalty or criminal conviction of the
| corporation.
|
| [1] https://usafacts.org/data/topics/economy/jobs-and-
| income/job...
| lostlogin wrote:
| > You fuck up, it's your own money you gotta pay with,
| not the company's bottomless war-chest.
|
| Sort of good and sort of bad - some percentage of the
| time this would lead to zero money changing hands as the
| executive is bankrupt or has no assets.
| oliwarner wrote:
| > I wouldn't want to do business in a place ...
|
| And that's rather the point. Apple earns a lot of money
| in the EU and much of that seems to be through abusing
| their position.
|
| So yes, if you're the executive who signs off on
| something that is so clearly anticompetative, you should
| own the penalty. Ignorance of the law is not a defense.
|
| That, or leave.
| simonh wrote:
| It's still to be determined if this is illegal.
| Muromec wrote:
| It's also to be determined whether somebody will go to
| jail for that and criminal law already errs on the side
| of defendant.
|
| It changes the risk appetite, sure, but that's the point.
| generalizations wrote:
| You're ignoring the second half of that sentence, and
| pretending like the laws will only ever be enforced
| morally.
| oliwarner wrote:
| I'm not ignoring it, it's just irrelevant.
|
| _Anything_ you do --atomically legal or not-- becomes
| illegal if it smothers the chance of competition by using
| you market dominance.
|
| The thing I'm arguing here is that the person taking
| those decisions faces consequences.
| gizmo wrote:
| Do you want to send executives to jail when their
| products kill people? The line has to be drawn somewhere,
| and if there is no (functioning) regulatory oversight
| then businesses will absolutely not self-regulate.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| PG&E caused the death of hundreds and the loss of
| hundreds of homes, and they've done it multiple times. Is
| there regulatory oversight because I'm not seeing it.
| They will happily cut corners in the name of profit even
| if it means killing people.
| munk-a wrote:
| Considering how impactful some executive decisions can be
| why would this be so inconceivable? A CEO can definitely
| cause more harm to a community than a shoplifter and we
| have no qualms about sending them to jail. If there was a
| clear mens rhea to cause harm or awareness of that harm
| and a disregard for the consequences to others then why
| shouldn't we treat it similarly?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _If there was a clear mens rhea to cause harm or
| awareness of that harm and a disregard for the
| consequences to others then why shouldn 't we treat it
| similarly?_
|
| Yes, and we do. That's well below the threshold of
| commercial disputes.
| Muromec wrote:
| Public servants can and do go to jail for corruption, so
| should private sector officials for certain acts.
|
| It's much better for a shareholder too, as I for example
| don't want to pay with my money for ceo's ego trips.
| abduhl wrote:
| The question you should be asking is: would execs still
| exist? And we know the answer to this from before the
| advent of corporations: yes, just as tycoons and barons
| with barely any checks on their political and financial
| power instead of as execs.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > with barely any checks on their political and financial
| power
|
| I fail to see the difference?
| xxpor wrote:
| When was the last time a warlord stole your children?
| munk-a wrote:
| Personally - never... but illegal adoptions are a very
| dark side of human trafficking so you may want to be more
| careful with your example. The truth is that we live in a
| far better society than fifty or a hundred or a thousand
| years prior - we have far more access to justice. But if
| you think that access to justice is universal then there
| are some hard truths in your future.
| infamouscow wrote:
| When this question is asked, it's always with an implicit
| bias that executives are all morally bankrupt demons that
| would be beaten to death by the public if not for police.
|
| My response to that is: we should change the laws.
|
| Nobody ever asks this question thinking about multi-
| generation family businesses where the executive is the
| head of household and if everything works out, the
| business will be passed down to their progeny.
|
| Of course, it also begs the question why do we accept
| this?
| fngjdflmdflg wrote:
| Interestingly countries that jail people for corruption
| still have corruption. For example in China you can be
| jailed and even executed for corruption but there is still
| a lot of corruption there. Here's an example I read about a
| few days ago where a city government arrested someone who
| demanded to be payed for their construction contract.
| (Obviously the real story may be more complicated.)[0] And
| there are definitely petty execs there as well. I think it
| may be because you need more power in enforce corruption
| laws, and power itself multiplies the effect of corruption.
| That is why I think the civil law vs. criminal law is an
| important distinction.
|
| [0] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-
| economy/article/3253705/c...
| geodel wrote:
| Seems current laws look civilized/weak for your taste.
|
| I think you'd rather prefer Sunday gala of past where
| convict would be covered with oil soaked rags and then set
| on fire. So while that person ran crying, howling it
| provided tons of entertainment to hardworking folks
| gathered there. And in that process of course justice
| prevailed.
|
| This is what one call win-win proposition.
| fantyoon wrote:
| I think it would be wise to reflect on whether the next
| logical step from "I think fines are not effective enough
| and decision markers should face jail setences" is "I
| think we should set people on fire as punishment and
| public entertainment". Do you genuinely believe that a
| person arguing for the first, would agree or would be
| close to agreeing with the second?
| ben_w wrote:
| I'm willing to believe Apple may be like that behind the
| scenes, buuuuuut while reading this:
|
| > Many of them will tank their company and their client if
| they get their ego bruised and feel publicly humiliated.
| Those are hyper competitive people which see live as zero sum
| game and are trained in life to never, ever, lose a challenge
| or competition for domination. ESPECIALLY in public.
|
| ... I thought you were going to name Sweeney as the petulant
| man-child chafing at rules and being told "no".
| izacus wrote:
| Let's go with both and even more on top? The exec positions
| attract the personality type.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Feels like a mob boss sending a message.
|
| _" We own this platform, we make the rules, and we don't care
| who you are or how big you are, you mess with us we'll terminate
| your account and revenue stream."_
|
| C'mon EU, do something. _< poking EU with a stick>_
| zshrc wrote:
| We own this platform, (we built this platform), we make the
| rules
|
| I don't see the issue with this... it's not like they're
| exploiting an inherited platform like Oracle with (everything),
| IBM with Red Hat or Broadcom with VMware.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Would you also defend Microsoft of the 90's with the same
| argument for the similar issue?
|
| At least Microsoft had no way of stopping you selling apps
| for Windows but Apple is a next level of nefarious.
| zshrc wrote:
| Microsoft didn't have competition in the 90s. Apple has
| plenty of competition, they've just built up a competitive
| advantage which is their fully-integrated platform. Googles
| been trying to build one on the Pixel for years and haven't
| come close to their success.
|
| Apples been doing this "next level of nefarious" since the
| App Store's introduction in iPhoneOS 3.0, and it's been
| fine up to this point, otherwise the platform (and
| consequentially the apps on these platform -- spotify)
| wouldn't have thrived the way it did.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Apple has plenty of competition_
|
| What competition? Apple has a 87% market share amongst US
| teenage population[1], Epic's core gamer market. It's
| basically a monopoly amongst their core demographic which
| will grow up to be adults with jobs and paycheck and
| guess what they'll buy? More Apple. With <13% market
| share Android isn't even in the race.
|
| [1] https://www.barrons.com/articles/apple-stock-teens-
| iphone-e5...
| zshrc wrote:
| But is anyone prohibited from going out and buying an
| Android? I see plenty of Samsung ads on TV.
|
| Does Apple stop you from downloading Signal and
| communicating with your Android friends that way?
|
| It's called "competitive advantage" in the US.
| causal wrote:
| I find it frustrating when people think something can't
| be a trust just because one can imagine hoops a consumer
| could jump through to find an alternative. Switching from
| iPhone to Android is onerous, and most users are locked
| into multi-year payments contracts for the device they
| have.
|
| A healthy competitive environment should have 10+
| options. The fact that two massive corporations have the
| entire space locked up is not sufficiently competitive
| nor healthy for consumers.
| giantrobot wrote:
| The previously existing competition should have competed
| rather than completely fucking up. Both Apple and Google
| started as complete underdogs in the phone market.
|
| Many current Android manufacturers used to built phones
| running their own platforms or Windows Mobile. Symbian,
| Windows Mobile, PalmOS, and BlackBerry all died not
| because Apple or Google somehow hamstrung them but
| because they sucked compared to what Apple and Google
| were selling.
| causal wrote:
| I agree that would have been nice. But that is not the
| consumer's fault; it is however in the consumer's
| interest to have strong antitrust laws which restore a
| competitive environment.
| Narishma wrote:
| > But is anyone prohibited from going out and buying an
| Android?
|
| Yes, through social pressure.
| xtracto wrote:
| I think what Apple is doing is more similar to Nintendo I
| the 80s with their "seal of quality".
|
| There where a couple of companies that circumvented their
| security mechanisms and went to court. Was that wrong of
| Nintendo?
|
| My opinion is that, as long as people keep buying and using
| it, Apple can do whatever they want in their platforms.
|
| They will change when most app devs coordinately delete
| their apps from the store, in a mass "strike" or when
| customers stop paying for their shitty phones.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > They will change when most app devs coordinately delete
| their apps from the store, in a mass "strike" or when
| customers stop paying for their shitty phones.
|
| (Android user here.)
|
| Apple doesn't make shitty phones, far from it. Solid
| build quality, performance and stability across the
| board... there are _very_ few Android devices that can
| compete with Apple and almost all come from Samsung.
| paulmd wrote:
| > At least Microsoft had no way of stopping you selling
| apps for Windows
|
| what are you talking about? microsoft literally created and
| sold versions of windows that could only access apps sold
| through their own app store lmao
|
| microsoft also has the exact same policies as apple does on
| their own "platform", try selling an xbox app without doing
| it through microsoft's store
|
| they are possibly the worst example you could have given,
| and yet here you are doing the victory lap. cringe.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39619432
| kjreact wrote:
| Since Epic is fighting Apple, let's overlook the fact it is
| charged by the FTC for using dark patterns to sell virtual
| costumes for billions; an interesting choice for a champion
| of consumer rights.
| tristan957 wrote:
| How does that apply here?
| matwood wrote:
| It's hard to compare anything else to MS in the 90's
| because Windows (and Excel) had 90%+ marketshare. MS was
| able to strong arm companies into doing what they wanted by
| threatening to withhold Windows licenses.
|
| The MS case and recently lost Google case are closer to
| each other than anything going on with Apple.
| jessekv wrote:
| In the EU, the EU owns the platform and makes the rules
| (controls and regulates markets). The question is: which
| platform needs the other more?
| meindnoch wrote:
| As an EU citizen, I would choose Apple without hesitation.
| abhinavk wrote:
| Are you in Stockholm?
| meindnoch wrote:
| No. Why?
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| > We own this platform, (we built this platform), we make the
| rules
|
| _I_ own _my_ phone, _I_ make the rules.
|
| If Apple doesn't want Epic on the App Store, fine. But their
| current level of control over what people can do with the
| devices they purchased and own is absurd and has nothing to
| do with market size.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| No no, you see the restrictions are there for _YOUR_
| protection.
|
| _" Won't someone please think of the children?"_
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| "Anytime someone puts a lock on something you own,
| against your wishes, and doesn't give you the key,
| they're not doing it for your benefit"
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| HN's collective opinion: _" Hey, if you don't like
| Apple's walled garden, the you can giit out! [and move to
| Android]"_
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2bOXQibamM
| djmips wrote:
| It's a variation on the temporarily embarassed
| millionaires.
|
| HN is full of temporarily embarassed walled garden
| magnates.
|
| The say I don't want oligopolies or walled gardens
| punished because one day I could own a walled garden
| money making machine!
| blehn wrote:
| You say that like someone who didn't have to periodically
| clean/erase/throw away their parents' malware-infested
| Windows machine (which was already bogged down by anti-
| virus software) in the early '00s. Not that I agree with
| every Apple policy, but it's hard to argue that their
| customers aren't generally more "protected" than they
| have been on other platforms. The fact that my mom can
| safely use an iPhone for 4-5 years with little to no
| support from me is incredible.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> You say that like someone who didn't have to
| periodically clean/erase/throw away their parents'
| malware-infested Windows machine (which was already
| bogged down by anti-virus software) in the early '00s._
|
| Yes I have, you don't know me. And that's not an
| argument. Apple's MacOS is open unlike iOS and that's not
| full of malware or users getting scammed daily then what
| makes you think they'll suddenly start getting scammed on
| iOS. Explain that please.
| scottyah wrote:
| Seems more to me like someone built a beautiful walled garden
| where people are walking nicely, and some rowdy pirates are
| trying to break it down because they see a lot of money inside.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> someone built a beautiful walled garden where people are
| walking nicely_
|
| Just because you build something nice doesn't mean you can do
| whatever you want with it. You're still bound by the rules of
| the state where you operate and earn revenue.
|
| If I build a nice house for me I still have tones of
| regulation how I can build it and what I can do with it,
| including activities inside. For example, I can't fire
| guns(EU) or cook meth in my house, even though it's my
| property and I pay taxes on it.
|
| Tech companies for some reason think that just because they
| don't build with brick and mortar but with bytes instead,
| then somehow the local laws don't apply to them. So just
| because you built a nice walled garden, the state will want
| to make sure you don't get to screw over everyone who enters
| there.
| lapcat wrote:
| Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39617729 (1 hour ago,
| 72 comments)
| beeboobaa wrote:
| Mysteriously not on the front page.
| lapcat wrote:
| That is indeed strange.
| testfrequency wrote:
| I was going to start an Ask HN post on this very thing just
| this morning, so instead I'll just reply here.
|
| The last few weeks, HN seems to be suppressing Apple
| headlines. They will be on the front page, but then drop
| off minutes later - despite being fresh, growing in votes
| and engagement, and being high quality articles.
|
| Meanwhile, positive headlines about OpenAI will be up for
| hours...
|
| Also, don't blame the mod tools. This should be fixed,
| that's not normal
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I didn't flag this one, but a lot of the debates wind up
| with pro-Apple/anti-Apple generalities. Which isn't
| interesting. Even in this thread, it's mostly people
| expressing outrage and disgust or reflexive dismissal;
| few actual thoughts.
| dang wrote:
| Thank you for not posting an off-topic Ask HN. As the
| site guidelines ask, you should email hn@ycombinator.com
| if you want to ask or tell us something
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html).
|
| There's no special treatment of Apple stories or any
| other $BigCo stories on HN; the dominant variable is
| simply random fluctuation. If you're seeing otherwise,
| it's almost certainly because random fluctuation provides
| a rich set of datapoints to confirm whatever perception
| you're inclined towards. Mostly we're all primed to
| notice, and weight more heavily, the things we dislike.
| (Endless past explanations about this here, for anyone
| who cares: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&p
| refix=true&que...).
|
| For example, if you dislike $BigCo then it will seem like
| negative stories about $BigCo are being suppressed.
| Indeed there are tons of examples of such stories not
| staying on the frontpage--but there are also tons of
| examples of exactly the opposite. How one weights these
| is a function of one's own perception, which is governed
| by what one likes and dislikes. People who like $BigCo
| are just as convinced that HN is biased _against_ $BigCo,
| and find just as many datapoints to support it, and post
| just as many complaints about it.
|
| These dynamics are as old as the hills and impossible to
| stop. All we can do is answer specific questions when we
| happen to see them. I only saw this one randomly; in the
| future, please use the reliable mechanism
| (hn@ycombinator.com) to get your question answered. It's
| not as if any of this is secret!
| op00to wrote:
| It's not mysterious. Every time this happens it's because the
| thread triggered a flame war filter.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| That's not true. A story can disappear from the front page
| for a variety of reasons, including user flags and manual
| moderator intervention. There's no reason to suspect this
| particular story triggered the flamewar detector.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| The number of comments exceeds that number of votes.
| IIRC, that's one of the factors in the flamewar detector.
| sillysaurusx wrote:
| You're right, but they didn't at the time.
| dang wrote:
| Normally we'd merge into the earlier thread, but in this case
| I'm going to merge those comments hither, because the current
| submission is (presumably) a more neutral article.
| hellcow wrote:
| Clearly the recent 1.8B Euro fine the EU levied against Apple
| didn't send a message. Perhaps the EU needs to ratchet it up by
| an order of magnitude.
| s3r3nity wrote:
| Quite an authoritarian take.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| Both sides are authoritarian. One is a private company with
| more money than most countries, one is an economic union
| nominally representing the people of many countries.
|
| I don't know where I fall on this issue personally, but
| siding with Apple is probably more authoritarian.
| BudaDude wrote:
| People defend Apple like its the underdog. Apple has been
| Goliath for almost a decade. Apple under Tim Cook is more
| about making money than it is about making the best
| product.
| ikekkdcjkfke wrote:
| Yep and i think the market is saturated, but they still
| need the number to go up for the big shareholders. I mean
| they have a gross profit of 150 billion, it's not like
| this is helping the workers making apple's products and
| services.
| ben_w wrote:
| I'm old enough to remember when they were the underdog.
|
| I still find it weird that people spent the last 5 years
| complaining about practices that started when they still
| were an underdog, and which were applauded at the time,
| and which don't even fully apply now to all developers
| anyway.
|
| But you're right, they're not underdogs any more.
| scottyah wrote:
| It's two private companies, in this case one is using their
| local government to try to force the other to change, in
| order to make more money.
| abhinavk wrote:
| People think Apple is a struggling company still making
| iPod and PowerMacs to stay afloat.
| Muromec wrote:
| Oh, authoritarian EU. What is it, 2016 again?
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| The unelected 'authority' being Apple, of course.
|
| Apple's choice was apparently to die as a hammer-wielding
| hero or live long enough to become the patriarch on the
| telescreen.
| ergonaught wrote:
| More likely, Apple needs to withdraw entirely from the EU and
| see what happens.
| freetanga wrote:
| Watch as your shares slide down as you withdraw from one of
| the worlds largest markets?
| selectodude wrote:
| The EU is Apples least profitable market.
| lapcat wrote:
| Totally wrong. Europe is Apple's 2nd biggest market. http
| s://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2024-q1/FY24_Q1_Consol.
| ..
| selectodude wrote:
| And it's their least profitable.
| Jensson wrote:
| Is it less profitable than China? Doesn't look like it.
| They operate in more than 2 markets.
| jsnell wrote:
| What are you basing that claim on? As far as I can see
| Apple's financials only break out revenue by geography,
| not net income.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| What will happen if they exit the EU? They will loose more
| revenue and tank their stock and Tim Apple will get the boot
| ad EU users will move to Samsungs, Pixels and Nokias and life
| will go on.
|
| You're acting like the EU is some poor country in the outback
| and not their second biggest market after the US.
|
| Or better yet, we fork Android and have a non-Google EU-only
| appstore similar to Huawei's Andorid fork OS and appstore but
| with EU's privacy rules. If so many companies bother to make
| apps just for Huawei's separate appstore, then they'll
| definitely do that for the EU as well. Of course, then Google
| will go bitch about it to "daddy", and the US will probably
| start a trade war with the EU.
| pelorat wrote:
| > Or better yet, we fork Android and have a non-Google EU-
| only appstore similar to Huawei's Andorid fork OS and
| appstore but with EU's privacy rules.
|
| No one would use it and no developers would publish to
| them. All brands have their own appstore already, but no
| one uses them so they also all ship with the Google app
| store.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Unless you can't ship with the Google store.
|
| You're wrong. A lot of Apps are on Huawei's store in EU.
| kyriakos wrote:
| Apple stock price will drop. IPhone usage in EU will drop
| instantly. Apple revenue will be severely hit.
|
| People will get over it switch to alternative services.
| c-fe wrote:
| I think the main danger would be a (new?) competitor trying
| to become Apple, to fill the niche of premium devices, simple
| lineup, i.e. whatever image apple currently has. And they
| could do so in europe in all peace and once they are ready
| expand to other markets and compete with Apple. To me that
| seems like one of the biggest dangers of withdrawing from the
| EU.
| asvitkine wrote:
| And how long would that take to happen?
| speedgoose wrote:
| My guesses: A big party at Google, a wave of so-so
| smartphones from companies that will try their luck in the
| high-end smartphones segment, a grey market of iPhones
| imported from other countries at high prices without
| warranty.
| Muromec wrote:
| Grey import is usually cheaper due to higher taxes in EU.
| lapcat wrote:
| Apple's last quarter results: $30 billion in net sales from
| Europe, their second largest market behind the Americas. http
| s://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/fy2024-q1/FY24_Q1_Consol...
|
| The idea of leaving Europe is nonsense. Apple is a publicly
| owned corporation, and Tim Cook would be immediately
| dismissed for such financial recklessness.
| drawnwren wrote:
| what are their margins? an $18B fine starts to make it seem
| possible that it would be profitable to not sell there.
| gray_-_wolf wrote:
| Or, you know, they could just comply with our laws...
| vineyardmike wrote:
| How much of that revenue is threatened by DMA? If they
| stand to lose most of their revenue or profits by
| complying with the laws, why bother?
|
| It seems crazy that Apple is going to die on this hill,
| but I'm really curious what the accountants are sending
| the execs. I could see them willing to gamble a chunk of
| revenue to prevent every other market from trying to
| write similar laws, especially if they're losing that
| revenue regardless.
| lapcat wrote:
| 80% of Apple's revenue is hardware.
| drawnwren wrote:
| I think their point of view would be that they're selling
| a global product and the value of serving a market needs
| to exceed the cost of the peculiarities of serving it.
|
| Maybe there's a complex solution here, but the naive one
| of global compliance to local demands needs an evaluation
| of cost vs reward. There's also the somewhat possible
| concern that the EU might actually just be hostile to
| Apple and cutting losses now against possible future
| losses makes sense. (Again, remember we're presuming
| order of magnitude increases in fines).
| izacus wrote:
| Hahaha, have you seen the firing frenzy the US execs were
| expected to execute for a SLIGHT DIP in revenue and a few %
| in cost of a loan? :D
|
| And you expect those same share holders to just support
| leaving of a massive market? Cook would be taken through NYSE
| by his nether regions by just thinking that. This whole idea
| is nonsense.
|
| And even if, by any bizarre chance (it's 2020s after all) it
| happens, we'll suffer with... *checks list*... Samsung Galaxy
| Phones? Lenovo, Samsung and ASUS laptops? Sony headphones?
| Huh. What horrible existence. I'm sure that would be an end
| of the Union. Imagine using a great Samsung foldable instead
| of an iPhone.
| Muromec wrote:
| Motorolas are a thing again and are quite good.
| sojuz151 wrote:
| The lose of revenue would not be the biggest problem, they
| could afford it. The problem would be the loss of
| applications, most EU based developers would stop supporting
| iOS and focus on Android. That would hurt
| odiroot wrote:
| I'd love to watch that!
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| I so wish they would do that. Apple thinks it's more powerful
| than government, let's test that theory!
|
| Most people would understand that these huge, aggressive
| corporates must be brought to heel. The sooner the EU
| establishes credibility in this respect, the sooner we all
| win.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > More likely, Apple needs to withdraw entirely from the EU
| and see what happens.
|
| This uniquely American type of arrogance where TikTok/Huawei
| is guilty even if it complies will the laws, and American
| companies are innocent even if they break all our laws.
|
| There are, I am afraid, only two ways to respond -
| aggressively or subserviently. As US economy loses its
| position as the centre of the universe, the second option
| becomes less appealing.
| stale2002 wrote:
| Well here's another possibility.
|
| What if Apple complied with the law.
|
| They don't want to lose all those sales anyway.
| pipo234 wrote:
| I suppose they could do that, but wouldn't they still need to
| pay the 1.8B?
|
| [Added] ... And continue to support products and services
| already sold?
| vineyardmike wrote:
| Why would they? They'd be beyond any courts jurisdiction,
| but of course they could never return.
| Muromec wrote:
| That's not how cooperation treaties and jurisdictions
| work. They will totally pay that 2B and also pay for the
| privilege of running after them and the interest rate
| too.
|
| It's not a five year old who can do something mean and
| then just quickly run home.
| summerlight wrote:
| Investors will be very angry and the entire C-suites will be
| at risk of losing their jobs. They're doing this only because
| it will maximize their revenue/profit through market control.
| ergonaught wrote:
| It's a FAFO suggestion, nothing more, but I have not seen
| anyone consider (or care?) whether Apple's EU customers
| support the various decisions, which is the point that
| interests me.
| mountainriver wrote:
| I may get rid of my iPhone, this is just horrible continued
| behavior on Apple's part. Nothing can be worth the damage this is
| doing to their reputation
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| At least thanks to Unreal engine and their content in the PC
| space, Epic is big enough to survive this, but think of poor
| small indie devs who can have their revenue streams shut down
| at any time because $REASON and have no way of fighting back.
|
| Apple needs to be brought down a peg or two.
| bluescrn wrote:
| I'd rather people dump Apple products over their anti-repair
| practices or the whole concept of locked-downd devices tied to
| monopolistic App Stores, rather than the Apple vs Epic vs EU
| fight.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| This is an Apple vs. developers fight. Epic is just the one
| spending money on it.
| BudaDude wrote:
| I have been feeling the same way. Apple has been dropping the
| ball a lot lately. This whole malicious compliance thing they
| are doing with the EU is childish. Apple 100% should have lost
| the court case to Epic the same way Google did.
| usrusr wrote:
| When your stock is traded like the stock of a company with a
| stranglehold on a huge market it can press seemingly at will,
| what can you do other than pressing?
|
| Publicly traded companies are mercenaries bound to the
| highest bidder, nothing they can do about it.
| wigster wrote:
| apple cars, vr, losing out big time in china. cheerio tim time?
| sircastor wrote:
| Tim Cook has overseen Apple's most profitable years - It
| makes and continues to make obscene piles of money. Why would
| the board or the shareholders vote him out?
|
| If things go sideways, sure. But things haven't gone
| sideways. Day traders freak out about news stories, but the
| stock price has been a pretty solid to-the-right-and-up.
| nyxtom wrote:
| What even is a phone in the future anyway.
| granzymes wrote:
| >In the past, Epic has denigrated Apple's developer terms,
| including the Developer Program License Agreement (DPLA), as a
| prelude to breaking them.
|
| >Given that pattern, Apple recently reached out directly to Mr.
| Sweeney to give him an opportunity to explain why Apple should
| trust Epic this time and allow Epic Games Sweden AB to become an
| active developer. Mr. Sweeney's response to that request was
| wholly insufficient and not credible.
|
| From Apple's letter to Epic.
| MR4D wrote:
| Maybe Epic should just come out with their own Android-based
| phone and ignore Apple.
|
| EDIT - I don't mean this flippantly. I really think a gaming
| phone made by Epic would be fantastic. They have some great games
| that I enjoy, including Rocket League and Fortnite. Would love to
| see what they could do with a phone, especially how well they did
| on GM's Hummer (
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/7/21506572/epic-games-unrea... )
| screamingninja wrote:
| Something like Steam Deck? https://www.steamdeck.com/
| MR4D wrote:
| No. A phone.
|
| EDITED to add for context:
|
| Here's my deal - we're locked into 2 basic choices. The
| choices are fine, but it's like a Ford vs Chevy thing -
| boring.
|
| I really want someone else to com into the market and make a
| phone feel special. Like when Air Jordan's first came out.
| Nobody thought about a shoe as being special before that.
|
| Red had a phone, but didn't execute as well as I would have
| expected. Image what a phone would be like from Epic -
| fantastic UI, great feel in your hand. Like Fortnite? cool,
| they have one that looks like it came right out of the game.
| Like Rocket League? Cool - they have one for that too.
| ambichook wrote:
| remember the razer phone? that actually looked genuinely
| interesting, but it got killed off by the time i was in a
| position to actually buy an expensive phone :<
| RandallBrown wrote:
| If Microsoft would have called their Windows Phone the Xbox
| Phone and focused it on gaming, I think they would have been
| way more successful.
| ProfessorLayton wrote:
| Really curious what Apple's end game is here, they must know that
| being this anticompetitive will bite them pretty hard in the long
| term.
| davidg109 wrote:
| Apple makes incredible products, but their teenage angst
| corporate temper tantrums are vomit inducing. Might be time to
| vote with my dollar on other tech.
| leecommamichael wrote:
| Didn't they only terminate the Swedish account?
| supermatt wrote:
| So apple are now deciding who can be an App Store. That's not
| going to work out well for them.
| vld_chk wrote:
| Idk, subjectively it feels as end of Apple we all know.
|
| Clear stagnation in terms of innovation; no new fundamental
| interface (no smart glasses, AVP looks too expensive and too
| narrow); abandon on car project; AI for Apple is nowhere close to
| others; sales decrease; Apple Watch sales ban; Epic Games court;
| DMA -- after taking a leading position at the market, Apple
| clearly fails to offer anything new and instead invest too much
| resources into protecting their market position.
|
| Wonder what will replace Apple. Will we see a slow stagnation
| here or radically new interface for human-to-technology
| interaction is around the corner?
| codingcodingboy wrote:
| Maybe they should make cars.
| vardump wrote:
| I've spent ~$7000 on Apple products last year.
|
| I think it'll be $0 this year and going forward.
|
| Tired of this kind of crap. (Not only this, but Apple's behavior
| with EU, etc.)
| bjornlouser wrote:
| Je suis Sweeney!
|
| -- sent from my iPhone
| sergiotapia wrote:
| I ditched iphones for a Google Pixel 6 when it came out.
|
| Ditched my macbook for a Windows 10 beast machine running linux
| mint in VMWare Player. Flawless.
|
| I had _zero_ issues ditching apple. Especially since everyone I
| speak to uses Whatsapp anyways. This "green bubble" thing never
| affected me.
| EricE wrote:
| Who you going to replace them with that's better/same level of
| ecosystem/user experience? Genuinely interested.
| vardump wrote:
| Frankly me too.
| vlod wrote:
| I use terminal, vscode and firefox, docker to do development.
| Linux (specifically popos) works well for that and a lot of
| other stuff.
|
| For that I use a Thinkpad X1 Carbon.
| drooopy wrote:
| I am an Apple customer because I have loved using a Mac since
| before Steve Jobs returned to Apple and made it a trendy luxury
| item. But I can no longer support with my money "90s Microsoft
| 2.0".
| dang wrote:
| Related: https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/news/apple-
| terminated-e...
|
| (via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39617729, but we merged
| that thread hither)
| AnonC wrote:
| Though I'm in favor of forcing Apple to do certain things (right
| to repair, sideloading apps, and more), this is one case where I
| can't take a side. Epic (and actually Tim Sweeney), for all its
| bravado and underdog pretense, is a bad actor, a loose cannon and
| a dishonest player. Epic Games and Tim Sweeney thrive on drama
| and theatrics, and somehow seem to be driven solely against Apple
| while not batting an eyelid when it comes to other platforms
| where it pays 30% (or more?), such as Xbox, PlayStation and
| Nintendo. [1] I have no sympathy for Epic Games as long as Tim
| Sweeney and his drama goes on. This doesn't mean that I believe
| Apple to be innocent. Tim Sweeney has a grudge against Apple. I
| don't see anything more in the history of this saga.
|
| [1]:
| https://daringfireball.net/2020/08/sweeney_hand_waving_game_...
| cuban-frisbee wrote:
| Sweeney is the only one that seems to have the guts, the smarts
| and is willing to put his money where his mouth is against
| Apple and other bad actors. Whataboutism about console gaming
| is frankly laughable as is the notion that they have to fix all
| problems by the themselves at once or none of them count.
| ynniv wrote:
| Isn't Apple providing side loading for customers in Europe now?
| Sure, Apple is being petty, but I thought this is was what Epic
| asked for. Can anyone ELI5 this one?
| foggymtndrifter wrote:
| All side loaded apps still need to go through Apple
| notarization. It's malicious compliance from Apple.
| pornel wrote:
| No. There is no sideloading at all.
|
| Apple very begrudgingly allowed creation of alternative
| AppStores (marketplaces) instead, which are still completely
| under Apple's technical control, and still go through Apple's
| review.
|
| Apple requires having a 1 million dollar credit line to allow
| opening a 3rd party AppStore, so consumers or small devs can't
| just bypass Apple's AppStore.
| gray_-_wolf wrote:
| You still need a developer account and application to be signed
| by apple in order to be able to side load it. Whether that
| requirement is legal remains to be seen.
| solarkraft wrote:
| They aren't actually allowing sideloading, but the ability to
| install "marketplaces", which can only be provided by verified
| developers under very strict rules regarding government. It's a
| huge disappointment.
| plussed_reader wrote:
| I would think this is a money game where it will force Epic to
| become a European developer/entity instead of just an American
| developer, to access the DMA market.
|
| More hoops and more BS is entirely on brand for Apfel in this
| exercise.
| kylerush wrote:
| There seems to be a libertarian slant to a lot of the comments on
| this. It reads as if most people believe they have an inalienable
| right to extend Apple's products. In other words, it doesn't
| matter what I do, what I say, or how I treat Apple, I have an
| inalienable right to extend their platform. A pretty bold take in
| my opinion.
| xNeil wrote:
| i mean, sounds fine? if i buy a physical product, i must be
| able to do whatever i want to do with it, no? who are apple to
| decide what i do with a device once i own it?
| kllrnohj wrote:
| It's not Apple's platform. It's mine. My device, my platform. I
| _allow_ Apple to install software on _my_ device, but it 's
| _my_ device. I own it, full stop.
|
| This whole idea that a company can sell you a product but still
| retain exclusive ownership and decision making over that thing
| that they sold you needs to die. It's such an abusive
| relationship and deeply anti-user.
| geodel wrote:
| > deeply anti-user.
|
| You mean anti-owner, since you really _own_ the device
| jmull wrote:
| I wouldn't pick a side in this one... it looks to me like there
| are two bad guys here, and I hope they both get taken down a peg.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Dismantling Apple's Appstore monopoly would positively impact
| the freedom of users and developers.
| jmull wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| And Epic is an actively deceptive business partner that forms
| agreements with the intent to break them.
|
| Both bad, as I say.
| redbell wrote:
| PG said that a previous tweet by Tim Sweeney is one of the
| reasons..
|
| https://twitter.com/paulg/status/1765431238985187525
| chatmasta wrote:
| > According to Epic, Apple reportedly told the company that it's
| "a threat to their ecosystem."
|
| Note they're not saying Epic is a security threat or has a
| product that endangers Apple customers. Instead, they're calling
| Epic, the company itself, a threat to Apple's _ecosystem_.
|
| This quote makes sense, if you replace "ecosystem" with
| "monopoly."
| wolpoli wrote:
| To be more specific, it's likely that Epic is a threat to
| Apple's business/technical ability to steer/shape/profit from
| the iOS ecosystem.
| pmontra wrote:
| Actually, replace "ecosystem" with "revenues".
| andsoitis wrote:
| I think it is <insert-expletive> to make Epic out to be the
| villain.
|
| At the same time:
|
| > This quote makes sense, if you replace "ecosystem" with
| "monopoly."
|
| In the US, iPhone has a 57.93% market share. As of 2023,
| Android has a 70.29% global market share.
| chatmasta wrote:
| They have a monopoloy on distribution channels of iOS Apps.
| There is no way, other than through the App Store, for a
| developer to sell software to the owner of an Apple device
| such that the owner can execute that software on their own
| device.
| Findeton wrote:
| So create another phone platform and compete.
| chatmasta wrote:
| What about the users who purchased an iPhone with the
| expectation that they would be able to execute software
| from Epic on their phone?
| Findeton wrote:
| They were wrong in their supposition. It's part of free
| market process, asymmetric information.
| chatmasta wrote:
| The only regulation we need here is a right-to-repair
| law, that requires hardware manufacturers to provide
| users root access to any firmware or software flashed
| onto the device.
|
| Or maybe you think that if Apple went out of business, or
| simply decided to shut down the App Store tomorrow, then
| all the users with bricked devices should have no legal
| recourse.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| They are free to return their phone and buy one that
| meets their needs.
| tristan957 wrote:
| I hope you will understand that this is not a valid
| argument when dealing with monopolies.
| Findeton wrote:
| It's a subjective monopoly. In fact everything is a
| subjective monopoly. And nothing is.
|
| Some people just like regulating everything.
| Findeton wrote:
| Monopolies are not a bad thing, except when they are enforced
| with violence=government.
|
| Fortunately no one forces you to use Apple's products.
| ckcheng wrote:
| I wonder why Apple doesn't open up. Or else just switch to a
| Costco model where membership means they get to dictate what's
| sold at what margin using which credit card network?
|
| Is the end game to force regulation on everyone (Google, etc) and
| then switch to a Costco model themselves?
| akmarinov wrote:
| Money.
|
| Why give up 30% of everything on your store?
| labster wrote:
| In the immortal words of Rod Blagojevich, "I've got this thing
| and it's fucking golden, and, uh, uh, I'm just not giving it up
| for fuckin' nothing. I'm not gonna do it."
| realusername wrote:
| That hot tempered decision will cost them a lot of money. They
| were already in a bad situation for essentially making the
| alternative stores worthless but cutting off Epic over a few
| tweets will further cement the idea that there's a competition
| problem going on here, this is also directly contradicting the
| DMA.
| casperb wrote:
| I just finished the last episode of The Talk Show podcast, where
| John Gruber says that Apple doesn't hold a grudge and is only
| doing things because they make business sense. He said that
| because Apple approved Epic's account and that they would be
| allowed their own App Store. I already that it was a bad take,
| but this shows it.
| davely wrote:
| I find that Gruber occasionally has some interesting insight
| but it's often hard to take him seriously these days -- he's
| effectively an unofficial PR outlet for Apple.
|
| (Fun fact: he co-created Markdown with Aaron Swartz)
|
| Edit: Swartz not Schwartz
| kccqzy wrote:
| It's a sad evolution. Gruber's blog is entitled Daring
| Fireball and in his early blogging days in the '00s he was in
| fact pretty daring and posted a lot of criticisms of Apple.
| Over time he had so thoroughly assimilated himself into the
| Apple way of thinking that he seldom notices whatever Apple
| is doing wrong.
| favorited wrote:
| > posted a lot of criticisms of Apple
|
| His criticisms were all about how the NeXT folks were
| _ruining_ Apple with their mach-o binaries, file paths &
| extensions, etc. You'd have thought that Avie Tevanian ran
| over his dog or something.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| He now gets exclusive 1 on 1 interviews with Apple execs
| and the blog is a full time job.
|
| You got to shill to pay the bills.
| munificent wrote:
| Really? I've always considered Gruber to be an Apple
| fanboy. He might write criticisms, but they read to me like
| a Deadhead penning an essay on why Aoxomoxoa isn't as good
| as Terrapin Station or something.
|
| Ultimately, Gruber knows his audience is Apple enthusiasts
| and his material comes from being given access by Apple.
| harrisi wrote:
| Swartz. Aaron Schwartz was in Mighty Ducks and Heavyweights.
| davely wrote:
| Thank you. That's an embarrassing mistake.
| kemayo wrote:
| He's pretty critical of them in some areas. Mostly in
| developer-relations these days -- he doesn't like the anti-
| steering App Store rules, and Apple's general "we provided
| the successful platform; your apps contribute nothing to
| that" attitude.
| DHPersonal wrote:
| John Gruber @gruber@mastodon.social @stroughtonsmith @macrumors
| So much for my theory that Apple was making nice with Epic.
| https://mastodon.social/@gruber/112050165133240095
| threeseed wrote:
| There is no point having rules and contracts if you aren't
| going to enforce them.
|
| It is inarguable that Epic broke the terms of the contract.
| They could've simply done what Spotify and others did and lobby
| governments whilst honouring the terms of the agreement that
| they voluntarily chose to sign. Instead Epic chose to be petty
| in order to prove a point.
|
| Is Spotify banned ? No. And they are 100x a competitor to Apple
| than Epic is.
| Keyframe wrote:
| _Apple doesn't hold a grudge_
|
| Nvidia
| 015a wrote:
| This is egregious and deeply disturbing behavior from Apple. At
| this point it feels wrong to own an iPhone. I'm at a loss for
| words describing what Tim and their leadership team has done to
| this company that I used to admire so much.
| api wrote:
| They're addicted to bad revenue here.
|
| Once they started with the App Store revenue and especially
| taking a cut on all transactions, they were locked in. It's a
| public company so number must always go up. If number doesn't
| go up, executives are gone and replaced with people who will
| make number go up. That means it's impossible for them to back
| out of the App Store revenue channel. They'll have to be forced
| out by government action, in which case they can write it off
| as unavoidable and appease the shareholders and maybe not be
| replaced.
|
| The basic principle here is that when a company takes on a
| revenue stream, it becomes addicted to it and it's incredibly
| difficult to give that revenue stream up even if it's
| destructive to other aspects of the company or brand. This is
| very closely related to the innovators' dilemma. In fact that
| might be seen a special case of the same failure mode.
|
| If Apple ever goes really into advertising, that'll really be
| the end of them as a good brand. Advertising revenue destroys
| everything it touches. It's possible that they could recover
| from this debacle but a pivot into ads is the end.
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| They already have an ads business, fwiw.
| AJ007 wrote:
| And ads is the one line of business that is growing.
|
| All of the privacy and app tracking restrictions
| conveniently relate to them having all of the tracking data
| and third parties not having it. Your data is "private", to
| everyone except Apple.
|
| This is the reason Apple is violently opposing any software
| coming from sources they don't control.
|
| The way the DMA was written is a convoluted joke. It could
| have been a lot simpler: hardware device makers shouldn't
| be able to block third party software. A more extreme case
| could prevent companies over a certain size from
| manufacturing hardware _and_ the operating system.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| Then Apple would simply say they are not blocking third
| party software from their hardware (iPhones), they are
| just blocking it from running on their software (iOS).
|
| Making a law is inherently a messy job, if you think you
| can replace a 100 page document with 100 words, there's a
| good chance you are overlooking a lot of complexity.
| chongli wrote:
| The issue for Apple is that their hardware business is
| slowing down due to market saturation. Their recent attempt
| at growth into a new hardware market (Vision Pro) seems like
| a huge dud. Their last successful new product was the Watch
| which at about 100 million sales in total is only half of a
| single year's iPhone sales (and likely less profitable).
|
| So where do they go from here?
| api wrote:
| They've tried becoming a bank (or banking reseller at
| least) with Apple Card which now has savings accounts and
| such. They're also apparently doing some AI work that could
| be interesting. But yeah, this is the real issue. Number
| must always go up and mobile is a saturated market now.
|
| They should do more acquisitions. Buy Anthropic for
| starters. Absolute no brainer. Make Claude the new Siri and
| roll out powerful on-device models too.
| imglorp wrote:
| More acquisitions? Why? They're already a $3 trillion
| company. As parent comments say, they have saturated the
| market, maxed out the app store at the expense of good
| will, and are engaged in a duopoly spiral with Alphabet.
| How long will "number go up"? Until the planet is piled
| up to space in paperclips?
| layer8 wrote:
| They may have to realize that unlimited growth is simply
| not possible.
| hn_version_0023 wrote:
| It works for cancer, at least until the patient dies.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Can't sell more iPhones - only option is casino games for
| children!
| AJ007 wrote:
| Focus on not slaughtering their golden goose. Public
| companies absolutely do not need to grow revenue and many
| industries remain in states of decline for decades.
| However, lack of growth means the stock option party is
| over for employees.
| elevatedastalt wrote:
| Dunno why you are being downvoted. Regardless of what one
| thinks of Apple charging 30% tax on their dominion, the fact
| that it's now become a sort of dependency is correct.
|
| Governments have the same problem. Once you start taxing, it
| becomes hard to give up the revenue stream.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| I just don't understand what Apple expects out of the situation
| at this point. What's the best-case scenario here, that the EU
| will say "yeah that checks out" and let Apple have their way
| after all? This is going to backfire horribly.
| pulse7 wrote:
| Apple just prepared the ground for the next billion dollar EU
| fine...
| codedokode wrote:
| Maybe US govt will protect Apple?
| dvfjsdhgfv wrote:
| Maybe. But it feels like the sentence is formulated in a
| wrong way in this context, it should be, "Maybe US govt
| will help Apple to continue to screw its customers".
| notaustinpowers wrote:
| The only thing I can think of is that Apple is trying to do
| whatever it can to continue to generate income from
| developers to make sure its quarterly reports look good until
| it has another plan.
|
| In 2023, they processed $89.3bn in IAP, a 2.8% increase from
| 2022. Their top-grossing app was TikTok with $1.9bn in IAP.
| At a 30% split that's $520m to Apple. And that's just from
| one app that doesn't really push IAP as egregiously as games
| like Fortnite.
|
| I think Apple is trying to ensure a new product _cough_ Apple
| Vision Pro _cough_ to offset losses from the alternative app
| stores.
|
| They know the EU won't ever allow them to do what they're
| currently doing to "comply" with the DMA. But all they have
| to do is stonewall long enough to Vision Pro or some new
| service/product/etc to replace the revenue lost from the DMA.
|
| A company failing to meet revenue goals due to governmental
| compliance? No investor wants to take that sort of gamble,
| their stock would take a massive hit.
| jmole wrote:
| Couldn't agree more. I think the iPhone 15 Pro may be my last
| iPhone. Apple's entire reaction to the DMA has left an
| incredibly bad taste in my mouth.
|
| I used to think these were my devices, but Apple has been
| making it crystal clear lately that they consider them to be
| _their_ devices.
|
| "We own the customer" is the new mantra of Apple.
|
| Maybe it was always that way, with the iPod and iTunes, etc.
|
| Thankfully I've never felt that way when using a Mac.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| What you gonna use tho? I've been degoogling and pooling most
| of services like email to iCloud for a while now. Should I
| just get rid of smartphone altogether?
| burningChrome wrote:
| There are other options.
|
| I switched last year to a slightly older Android phone
| running Graphene OS and have been using that but have
| realized there are drawbacks to doing that.
|
| Depending on what carrier you have, you can also check out
| some of the other Chinese imports that are competing well
| with Samsung and Apple. A lot of people I know are just
| using a personal cloud storage with their phones and just
| offloading their stuff there which is pretty easy to set
| up. Hell, even Microsoft OneDrive is easy to set up syncing
| with. iCloud is just one solution for backup and storage
| these days.
| burningChrome wrote:
| >> but Apple has been making it crystal clear lately that
| they consider them to be _their_ devices.
|
| This is a great point. The thing that sucks is the market is
| down to two main phone companies - Apple and Samsung. Unless
| you're on a carrier where some of the import phones like
| Xiomi or ZTE work, we're all stuck between two companies who
| increasingly are abusing their positions in the market
| because they can.
|
| Apple seems not to care any more about customer sentiment and
| does things more so for the bottom line than anything else
| right now. I guess that's what we should've expected when the
| guy who ran the supply side of the company with an iron fist
| gets promoted to CEO.
| Zambyte wrote:
| The fact that Apple (the 3rd party in the interaction between
| you and the developer) has a say at all in what people do with
| their computers at all is already egregious. I couldn't imagine
| letting someone else control my computers like that.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| It's enough of an issue where I honestly don't understand how
| a single user on a site called 'hacker'news could be okay
| with it.
|
| Imagine if you couldn't run software of your choosing on
| Windows either. And the only way to publish an app on Windows
| was to agree to give Microsoft 30% of everything. That's the
| exact behavior your enabling by using Apple products.
| zarzavat wrote:
| The thing is, we all have laptops within our vicinity most
| of the time.
|
| The people who are really affected by these policies are
| the normal people who don't own computers. For many people
| their phone is their one and only computing device.
|
| Especially for kids, if I had grown up with only an iPhone
| I doubt I would have become a programmer.
| redder23 wrote:
| No offense but if this is what broke the camel's back for you
| then you seem like live in a different planet.
| Razengan wrote:
| With all the money Epic has spent, and lost, on this, along with
| the billions they're making from Fortnite and Unreal, they could
| have made their own phone and platform by now.
| etchalon wrote:
| Apple is just acting increasingly stupid. There's no word for it.
| LightHugger wrote:
| I feel strange having watched from afar as apple abused their
| users over and over, and then see apple users be surprised and
| horrified at this more recent behavior.
|
| They have not changed one bit. This was always apple, behavior
| which everyone who purchased their status symbol focused
| products at insane markups supported.
| etchalon wrote:
| Hard disagree on basically everyone you said beyond this move
| not being too surprising. Apple holds grudges. Always has.
|
| But this is just asking for trouble without any real benefit.
|
| Maybe they want the fight, I guess. But it's a dumb fight.
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| Seems like the message is, sure we lost our case against the EU
| so we have be more open on the platform/store, but we're just
| going to ban any developers who even try to take advantage of
| that. I suppose they're leveraging their duopoly/luxury positions
| to give everyone the finger. And once again I'm glad I have
| nothing to do with the Apple ecosystem.
| dilap wrote:
| They really seem to be making a mockery of the EU regs here.
| Will the EU respond quickly and forcefully, or (essentially)
| admit that Apple is too big to regulate?
| CatWChainsaw wrote:
| IMO, little column A, little column B. EU is good about
| bringing lawsuits, but because of how law works, judgments
| are delayed, appealed, reduced, etc. Eye-watering fines are
| watered down and don't end up meaning much. Viewing the Big
| Tech names as nation-states by virtue of the sheer power they
| hold cuts through a lot of BS when people wonder why they do
| any action that might seem mind-boggling. It's because they
| think they can get away with doing it, and how often are they
| proven wrong?
| getcrunk wrote:
| I wish there was button I could press so the eu/courts would
| address this immediately. So I don't have to wait months/years.
| arthurofbabylon wrote:
| At first I was surprised Epic's shareholders tolerate CEO Tim
| Sweeney - Epic had this all wrapped up, they got a large portion
| of what they wanted, but Sweeney just couldn't help but keep the
| drama going, at risk of their business.
|
| But then I realized that Tim Sweeney owns more than half of Epic.
| If he wants to risk his company for a fracas/kerfuffle, then that
| is between him and his minority shareholder.
| yokoprime wrote:
| I don't think he's risking anything other than having to pay
| his team of lawyers. Apple is not a major platform for Epic, in
| fact earnings from sales outside of Windows and consoles is
| probably so tiny they wouldn't notice it if it disappeared.
| darknavi wrote:
| > Apple is not a major platform for Epic
|
| Well it's not a platform for Fortnite at all for the last few
| years.
| justin66 wrote:
| Literally all of Epic's biggest shareholders are on board with
| treating the problems with Apple as more than a "kerfuffle."
| They've attracted quite a bit of investment in spite of the
| ongoing lawsuits.
| bsimpson wrote:
| The raw emails are linked at the bottom of the post.
|
| Phil Schiller accuses Epic of intentionally violating its
| agreements and concludes "Please tell us why we should trust Epic
| this time." Epic founder Tim Sweeney replies that Epic "will
| comply" and offers to provide "any specific further assurances."
|
| Finally, Apple's lawyers tell Epic's lawyers that Apple is
| terminating the account because a judgement in Epic v Apple says
| they can, and that Tim did't sufficiently plead his case in his
| reply to Phil.
| naet wrote:
| There are a lot of conversations about Apple's "monopoly" on
| smart phones and I always find it so interesting.
|
| I used to use an iPhone, then switched to an android a few years
| ago, and I felt like there was basically full feature parity
| between the two of them. I'm not aware of any "killer app" or
| other use case that elevates one significantly over the other.
| They both have app stores with all the most popular apps, web
| browsers, nice cameras, phone calls and messages, etc. So it
| seems to me like there are plenty of alternatives if you don't
| want an iPhone that are just as good and often more affordable.
|
| Globally Android has a larger market share than iPhone, but
| iPhones seem to have a "social" factor that pushes them heavily
| in certain demographics (particularly any intersection of
| wealthy, young, and US American). Something about this social
| factor makes it feel to many people like a complete monopoly with
| no alternative even though there are tons of alternative phone
| models made by many other companies.
|
| For me, of course I think it would be _great_ if iPhones were
| better compatible with things like RCS chat, open app stores, USB
| instead of proprietary chargers, etc. But I feel like that can
| all be worked out long term by the market instead of pushing
| regulation on one specific company. If any of those things bother
| you just get a non iOS phone, and if they 're truly bad things
| over time more and more people will gravitate away from the
| company until they change. If Apple wants to make certain
| decisions around remaining a walled garden I think they should be
| able to (and there are arguments that their strategy could make
| their product better for certain audiences rather than worse,
| even if we might disagree with the take).
| honeybadger1 wrote:
| Apple, not unlike a modern-day ecclesiastical authority,
| excommunicates a heretic who dares to challenge its scripture.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| This will not fly in the EU.
|
| I am actually very annoyed about their behavior. My next phone
| will likely not be an iPhone. All the paid apps are subscription
| based now anyway, it's quite easy to switch.
| sandoze wrote:
| Yikes, you might be disappointed:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/google-asks-judg...
|
| I hear Huawei makes nice phones.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| android can sideload
| batrat wrote:
| You can install any store (ex: fdroid, aurora, etc) on
| Android already.
| pelorat wrote:
| Yes, but no-one does. Those stores only make sense if you
| have installed a de-googled AOSP, and their offering is
| maybe half a percent of what's on Google Play. It's an
| option for hackers, tinkerer and developers.
|
| I guess it's nice the option exist, but in practice it make
| no difference. Most consumers are not even aware that you
| can sideload apps or that there's alternative app stores.
| PreachSoup wrote:
| Android's store management is not different from windows. You
| can completely ignore it/install your own store/install your
| own apk. Not sure why people keep bring it up in Apple's
| case.
|
| I am still waiting for Apple to let me install the real
| Firefox
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| I'm totally ok with their behavior. My next phone will likely
| be an iPhone.
|
| If I wasn't okay with it, then I'd buy one of the multiple
| other options.
|
| There are alternatives to Android even. They're terrible phones
| with terrible platforms: that's why people don't want them.
|
| Apple makes an excellent phone with an excellent platform. I'm
| fine with letting them do that to the maximum degree they're
| able.
| vlod wrote:
| Wondering how this affects Apple employees. Back in the day,
| working for Apple seemed cool. (Pirate flags on building etc).
|
| Previously MSFT used to be (maybe they've turned that around?)
| the most hated tech company (becz of their very aggressive
| attitudes to competitors especially Netscape).
|
| One thing they didn't FU and is represented by the infamous
| sweaty Balmer video [0] of him shouting "Developers, developers,
| developers", is pissing of people who build on their platform.
|
| Well Apple seems to have topped that with this and other
| malicious compliance shenanigans in the EU.
|
| I can't every imagine developing an iOS/native app on that
| platform going forward.
|
| [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhh_GeBPOhs
| dmitrygr wrote:
| From working at apple, I remember that most engineers just work
| hard to make good hardware and software. I've heard very few
| mentions of what anyone outside of apple thinks of it
| 7moritz7 wrote:
| You'd assume making good hardware and software requires
| outside feedback. "Thoughts", one might say.
| xk_id wrote:
| Apple has been driving developers away for quite some time now
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19966135
| mataug wrote:
| > Wondering how this affects Apple employees. Back in the day,
| working for Apple seemed cool.
|
| Most employees are trying to pay bills and keep ar roof.
| Especially in today's tech job market, people are trying to
| avoid getting laid off. Very few people have the luxury of
| being able to think about apple seeming like a cool place to
| work or not.
|
| So I would say this doesn't affect most apple employees in
| anyway.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Ummm lol. So now sideloading is allowed (with lots of costs
| associated mind you) and if someone wants to use it Apple will
| just kick them off the platform? :')
|
| So first malicious compliance with all the inflated costs and
| then they don't even allow people to use it. I really hope the EU
| will crack down on this BS and force Apple to allow real
| sideloading.
|
| But anyway I've written Apple out of my life a long time ago.
| tebbers wrote:
| There's no way the EU allows Apple's interpretation of the DMA
| after they did this, Apple really made a mistake here. As you
| say, how can you be sure that alternative app stores won't just
| be booted off by Apple for $REASON?
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Made a mistake, why? They either comply right away, or just
| pretend to be deaf with their own interpretation, make Epic
| sue them again, pull the situation for a few years keep
| profiting off developers with their 30% rent, maybe at the
| end of it the EU will fine them some peanut and the rest is
| just profit, can't understand what the mistake is here
| andyferris wrote:
| The potential fines aren't peanuts. From memory, they are
| up to like 12% on global annual revenue (not profit), or
| something.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Ah didn't know it, that would be cool, fingers crossed
| mike_d wrote:
| > how can you be sure that alternative app stores won't just
| be booted off by Apple for $REASON?
|
| The EU law allows for consumers to sideload other app stores
| on hardware they control. It has no provision that compels
| Apple to continue doing business with a company in their own
| app store.
|
| Yes, it is a business decision you need to make to offer a
| sideload app store and opt-out of the Apple app store. Does
| it suck for Epic? Yes. But this is the path they chose.
|
| Edit: If you read the Apple letter Epic cites it refers to
| App Store Review Guidelines, clearly they are terminating an
| App Store developer account. Nothing stops Apple from minting
| a fresh Developer Account with only Marketplace capabilities
| if they apply for a Marketplace account.
| wilg wrote:
| Epic is unable to make their own app store without a
| developer account.
| mike_d wrote:
| It is unclear exactly what Epic lost access to, but you
| can have access to the CIP section required to get a
| certificate with an Alternative Marketplace entitlement
| without having access to the App Store Connection section
| which allows you to publish to the App Store.
| nar001 wrote:
| That's not how things work, you can only make an
| alternative app store with Apple's consent, not without.
| Deleting Epic's dev account means they can't make an
| alternative app store.
| dwaite wrote:
| Alternative app marketplaces are required to accept an
| agreement including payment terms to Apple. It is still a
| business relationship in Apple's DMA implementation.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| app store =/= developer account
| epolanski wrote:
| I agree the mobile ecosystem is cancerous, I have never given a
| dime to Apple for anything but their MacBooks for work reasons.
|
| The thing that gets most on my nerves is the ridiculous
| "protecting users security and privacy".
|
| Because if I go along this line of thinking then the conclusion
| is that they don't give a damn about it on the Mac line because
| there I can install what I want.
|
| It's not up to Apple to decide how I use their products and I
| will never ever buy their phones albeit I need to use one to
| test mobile websites and applications for work.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _The thing that gets most on my nerves is the ridiculous
| "protecting users security and privacy"._
|
| There's a distinction between "secure _for_ users by default
| " and "secure _from_ users "
|
| Apple (and Apple fans) _really_ like to muddy the two.
|
| You can build a perfectly secure ecosystem by default... that
| still has an escape hatch (covered with warnings) that the
| user retains the right to use.
|
| Apple chose in its mobile ecosystem, and continues to choose,
| not to do this.
|
| Ergo, what they're really in favor of is "security from
| users"
|
| PS: To head off the 'users are the most insecure part of a
| system' apologism, (a) we're talking about personal devices,
| not managed ones & (b) with great power comes great
| responsibility.
| Zak wrote:
| This complaint is valid for Google's Android as well for
| building a remote attestation system apps can use to see if
| the user has modified the operating system.
| XorNot wrote:
| "Bring Your Own Device" has honestly been pretty
| pathological in this regard. I like only having my phone
| on me, I very much dislike the various levels of invasive
| that corporate compliance software is designed around
| (Google do...not a bad job here in just having the
| domains separated, but I'd be much happier if it all had
| to live in it's own VM with only the access I grant it
| back to the main device).
| ethbr1 wrote:
| In Google's case, at least they have the technical fig
| leaf of being able to blame third parties.
|
| I.e. Google only implements Play Integrity (nee
| SafetyNet) attestation. Third parties decide what to use
| it for. Google has no control over those third parties.
|
| That said, in practice it's 90% about controlling and
| limiting open source / third-party Android forks.
| pjerem wrote:
| > But anyway I've written Apple out of my life a long time ago.
|
| I love my iPhone and my Mac. They are great devices. I've been
| using Apple products happily despite having pretty few
| acquaintance with the Apple brand (which I feel incredibly
| arrogant).
|
| All of those stories about the DMA and the total lack of good
| faith from Apple when it comes to respect the rules are making
| me strongly reconsider buying new Apple products in the future.
| In fact I'm starting to regret my investment in a Air M2 last
| year because while it's not new that Apple consider my devices
| to be their own, they are not even trying to act like it's not
| the case anymore. They are actively and publicly fighting
| against my (their customer) interests.
| can16358p wrote:
| Similar here. I like their products, their design and don't
| have anything better to my needs. I even find some sense
| about this whole DMA thing to their respect. But their user
| hostility and "you are wrong we are always right and we never
| accept that we are wrong" kind of gaslighting attitude of
| them as a company really makes me lose trust in them as a
| customer.
|
| While I still use Apple devices, I wouldn't have thought of
| switching to another ecosystem, say, 8 years ago.
|
| Now, if there was a good alternative, I'd seriously consider.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| The reason I haven't bought into the Apple mobile ecosystem
| wholly is because of the power they _could_ exert.
|
| My friends' counterarguments were always that they did not
| currently exert that power to the detriment of users.
|
| To which my reply was "Show me a few down quarters, missed
| growth targets, or a threat to one of their primary sources
| of revenue and see what they do."
|
| Any company should always be expected to pathologically
| leverage all forms of control it can, if it needs to
| generate profit.
| pjerem wrote:
| You are right and that's something I knew when I bought.
| It's not that I liked it but rather than in my opinion,
| it wasn't better on the Android side (I mean, at least
| Apple don't sell my health data). Windows is worse than
| everything else.
|
| (In fact I'm really grateful that Linux is even existing
| because otherwise the situation would be catastrophic.
| But I digress)
|
| The point is that now, Apple is exercising this control
| to (try to) actively defeat public regulators. I do
| believe It's pretty serious when a company actively tries
| to circumvent the rules made by the public powers.
|
| And I say that as someone who ideologically tolerates
| civil disobedience when needed. But corporations are not
| humans, they must respect the rules in all circumstances.
| Because respecting the stupid regulations and the stupid
| laws is the only thing that distinguishes them from
| mafioso systems.
| sshine wrote:
| > _if it needs to generate profit._
|
| And especially if it needs to retain control of its
| platform.
|
| Just look at Microsoft's dark patterns when it comes to
| browser control. And this is after the EU find them like
| a billion dollars on the exact same pattern 15-20 years
| ago with IE.
| spease wrote:
| > They are actively and publicly fighting against my (their
| customer) interests.
|
| If Apple allowed unrestricted sideloading or third-party app
| stores, then it loses its leverage to hold apps accountable
| to any guidelines.
|
| A few major players would switch to using the alternative
| method (eg Amazon would want to sell digital items and use
| its own payment system), legitimizing it, and then everyone
| who wants to ignore the guidelines for less admirable reasons
| would follow suit.
|
| Less technically savvy users would follow the prompts to
| install an app with extremely mixed results. And once there's
| no one way to install apps, it makes it that much harder for
| them to tell if an app is legitimate or not.
|
| That's maybe fine for more technical users, but for people
| who just want to use their phone as an appliance rather than
| verify the chain of trust for an app, there's no discernible
| benefit. The time required to verify an app is non-
| negligible, and the risk is pretty much infinite with respect
| to what information they give it.
|
| And sometimes you don't really have a choice whether to use
| an app or not. Your employer or locale may make or imply
| decisions on service providers for you, and the reason for
| choosing those service providers likely has nothing to do
| with how their app treats end users. They won't need to clear
| any quality bar to offer an app at all, and a locked-in
| customer has less negotiating power than Apple.
|
| Apple has positioned itself as a premium product which is
| going to make things simpler (ie reducing executive overhead)
| by making decisions for you. Saying "no" to features to keep
| things focused for the largest group of users is hard, and
| those decisions are going to trend towards the largest
| demographic using the platform, which is probably less-
| technical users who don't hang out on HN. If you want to
| customize the platform, then that's Android's competitive
| edge.
|
| You can even sideload apps with a developer license - that's
| essentially how UTM is installed:
| https://docs.getutm.app/installation/ios/
|
| While that does mean you have to put down more $$, it also
| effectively narrows the people sideloading apps to people who
| "know what they're doing" (or at least have demonstrated a
| higher bar of tech-savviness and clicked through more legal
| waivers)
|
| What do you want to do now that you can't do with the current
| state of affairs?
| nozzlegear wrote:
| They've already approved others for third-party App Store
| implementations:
|
| https://mastodon.social/@rileytestut/112039139930789909
| archagon wrote:
| Are any of them game stores?
| numbsafari wrote:
| Call me when Xbox allows side loading.
| drfuzzyness wrote:
| It's somewhat locked down as you need to apply with Microsoft
| for a Developer account, but you can technically sideload UWP
| apps onto your Xbox hardware by entering Developer Mode.
| https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/xbox-
| apps/devk...
|
| It's not convenient and you need to reboot your console to go
| back to running commercial apps, but it is present. At least
| it's a one-time payment to get the developer account.
| greedo wrote:
| And what percentage does Microsoft charge for games on the
| Xbox?
| sjm wrote:
| How is that at all different from what you could already do
| with Apple devices?
| danShumway wrote:
| Would anyone who's calling for iPhone sideloading be upset
| about Xbox sideloading? I wouldn't. By all means, let's
| regulate both Microsoft and Apple. The more the merrier.
|
| I don't think I've ever looked at a video game console and
| thought, "I'm sure glad that I can't sideload games onto
| this." This is a slippery slope that I am happy to go down.
| Ancalagon wrote:
| @dang theres an awful lot of downvoting and flagging going on in
| this thread. Do I smell astroturfing?
| andsoitis wrote:
| This is going to be an epic battle. Speak truth to power.
| zengid wrote:
| This is some spicy shit from Apple:
|
| > _"In the past, Epic has entered into agreements with Apple and
| then broken them," Schiller reminds the game maker in the letter
| dated February 23, 2024. "You also testified that Epic
| deliberately violated Apple's rules, to make a point and for
| financial gain. More recently, you have described our DMA
| compliance as 'hot garbage,' a 'horror show,' and a 'devious new
| instance of Malicious Compliance.' And you have complained about
| what you called 'Junk Fees' and 'Apple taxes."_
| pavlov wrote:
| Somehow I doubt that the EU competition authority will
| appreciate Apple's logic that criticizing their implementation
| of pro-competition regulation is valid grounds for preventing a
| competitor from accessing said implementation.
|
| It's like if your parents forced you to give a slice of your
| birthday cake to your little brother, and in spite you
| intentionally cut him a slice with no frosting. When he
| complains, you go: "No cake for you then!"
| ineedaj0b wrote:
| but epic was spitting on the cake. neither party is holy here
| plandis wrote:
| > In the past, Epic has entered into agreements with Apple
| and then broken them
|
| That sounds like a legitimate reason to not do business with
| Epic to me?
| pavlov wrote:
| Epic's past behavior didn't occur in the EU and was aimed
| at getting Apple to make the kind of concessions that the
| EU is now forcing upon them.
|
| Epic seems to have followed the letter of the DMA by
| setting up a European subsidiary that deals with Apple's
| European subsidiary. My feeling is that the antitrust
| people at the European Commission won't be happy with
| Apple's refusal to give them access.
| archagon wrote:
| If I'm an app developer, am I not allowed to complain about
| Apple's policies on social media?
| jarsin wrote:
| Haven't seen much discussion about Unreal Engine here.
|
| Epic stated in court filings that it would consider Unreal a
| failed business if it lost the ability to maintain unreal for
| ios.
|
| Many 3d enterprise apps need to run on ipads. This is hughe blow
| to unreal.
| seydor wrote:
| What a monster big tech has become.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| It is probably a good description of what society has become,
| there are a lot of people who go on repeating that these big
| tech are just corporations for profit and don't have to signal
| any good intention, because it doesn't make them any profit,
| and being bad doesn't make them lose any profit, because we've
| become just a bunch of ignoring consumers going after the next
| gadget blindly, these companies are shit, because it doesn't
| cost them anything anymore
|
| What I keep wondering is why iSheeps don't complain, like
| they're the ones who are buying these overpriced crap, then
| being squeezed of 30% every time they get an app, who they
| think is going to pay for the apple tax at the end of the day
| idle_zealot wrote:
| > What I keep wondering is why iSheeps don't complain
|
| Because the costs and detriments are obscured, dispersed, and
| nebulous. The consumers here are largely boiled frogs who
| don't know what they're missing. If users were used to an
| open system; an app store that functioned as an intuitive
| frontend for multiple distribution channels, a messaging app
| that supported all the protocols their friends and family use
| and seamlessly joined their conversations, a social media app
| that aggregated all the content from the people in their
| lives and creators they follow, and documents/photos/etc that
| sync across all of their devices. And then Apple et al took
| that all away; now you can only have apps we approve of, now
| all of your chats are split between platform apps with UIs
| that compete for your attention and try to upsell you
| features, now you have to use the Twitter app to read tweets
| (and see our ads), Instagram to see your friends' posts their
| (and our ads), YouTube to see new videos (and our ads),
| Twitch to watch people live (and our ads), oh, and also now
| all of your photos only sync to _some_ of your other devices
| (the ones we sold you). Then you 'd see outrage and
| indignation. iSheep don't know what is being kept from them,
| don't understand how cohesive and empowering a digital
| interface to the world should be. They have been trained not
| to expect a User Agent, but instead an appliance that allows
| them access to little islands and digital fiefdoms. And it
| isn't just Apple device users that are subjected to this.
| Apple is the most rigid in licking down their computers, but
| all major platforms add friction and roadblocks meant to
| discourage users from owning and tailoring their systems.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| 'You get in the car to go to the store. The car drives you to
| church instead, because the store has mysteriously exploded.'
|
| https://avaruusmies.com/jokes/if-operating-systems-ran-your-...'
| dann0 wrote:
| First, it's weird that anyone would take the side of Epic in any
| argument.
|
| Second, it's obvious that no one had actually read the article.
| Epic admitted that they have deliberately broken the App Store
| rules. That's enough to have anyone sanctioned in any system.
|
| Apple are certainly not unimpeachable here, but this blind hatred
| of Apple is out of control.
|
| At least get the facts close to right before spewing your
| uninformed BS.
| ineedaj0b wrote:
| epic is being a dick. you don't usually be a dick like this and
| expect zero repercussions.
|
| this is akin to apple and samsung making up but one party or both
| parties running to the media and calling each other a 'ch*nk,
| slant eyes' or whatever colorful language Samsung would paint the
| american apple...
|
| you can insult in business speak! it's common, but epic decided
| on normal speak --- is it because sweeney is pulling an Elon? Or
| is this a sign there are others movements the public is not aware
| that epic is doing? I would bet on the latter.
|
| I don't think this is a big deal. But I do wonder if fortnite is
| struggling more than expected and maybe there's an options play I
| should begin looking into
| zmmmmm wrote:
| In some ways it makes me question if it's impossible to have one
| without the other - can you have a company that is as obsessive
| about quality as Apple at the same time as one that won't attempt
| to exert monopolistic control over its whole ecosystem? Are these
| two sides of the same coin?
|
| I'd like to embrace something like the Vision Pro. But as long as
| it's an iPad strapped to your face fully locked to this
| controlled ecosystem that I fundamentally disagree with, I can't
| stomach it. There's something visceral about giving a company
| that exerts this obnoxious level of control complete control of
| every photon entering your eyeballs.
|
| So Apple, in case you ever care, you are at -1 Vision Pro users.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| But this isn't about quality at all.
|
| It's about Apple trying to milk the system for all it's worth.
|
| You can absolutely build a great product w/o trying to maximize
| profits to the extreme. That's just frowned upon in the current
| business world.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| Quality and openness are not in tension at all. I can buy cheap
| third party brake pads for a BMW, it doesn't make the OEM any
| less "obsessive" about quality.
| echelon wrote:
| Apple views every instruction executing on iPhone as something
| they own, control, and tax.
|
| It'd be cute if iPhone was a toy used by a million people.
| However, mobile computing has become a cornerstone of modern
| communications and societal function. You use these devices to
| book flights, buy goods, order food (at restaurants), date, do
| banking, send texts, emails, -- literally everything.
|
| And Apple controls and taxes all of it. All the innovation. All
| the connections. Everything.
|
| And they control how you write and deploy that software. It's a
| game of constantly jumping through hoops and stressing out over
| release trains.
|
| With a press of a button, a change in policy, Apple can nuke
| your product from orbit. And there's not a thing you can do.
|
| And Google, even with their "unlocked APK installs", isn't
| really any different.
|
| This is a new kind of monopoly. A solid chunk of the connective
| tissue of our planet and species is controlled, taxed, and
| ruled over by two overlord companies.
|
| I am so glad the Internet itself isn't like this. Except, these
| devices practically are the internet for many or most folks. So
| these to, in a way, do control and tax the internet.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| An obsession over quality would have Apple open the door to
| better audio services like Spotify to integrate with the
| phone's audio database for instance. Or have Kindle like apps
| let their user have the better purchasing experience. Or better
| browsers to have deeper system integration. Better messaging
| platforms interoperate with iMessage. A 3.5mm jack to have the
| best latency and highest potential audio quality. The list goes
| on and on.
|
| Apple values quality, but not above everything else. This is
| obvious and totally normal for a company, it's just weird it
| bears repeating so much.
| zmmmmm wrote:
| Yeah it's a great point. In some ways here we are seeing the
| exact illustration of that point. If they only cared about
| user experience and quality they wouldn't sacrifice their
| user's interests by forcing them through convoluted processes
| to buy content outside their own store. That's far from a
| high quality experience. So they value quality highly but
| it's a distant second to their own desire for control. They
| still present a very thin veil of pretending this is in their
| user's interests, but they are barely trying any more.
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