Apple ordered to not block Epic’s Unreal Engine, Fortnite to stay off App Store
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Here's a PDF of the ruling, I think it's worth reading: https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21814075/c...
Easy: a link off their site doesn't earn them any money. They want to you stay on their domain.
that’s the site I’d subscribe to.
(and the greatgrandparent comment has the hyperlink from The Verge)
[1] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&u=https:/...
- "Irreparable Harm: The issue of irreparable harm focuses on the harm caused by not maintaining the status quo, as opposed to the separate and distinct element of a remedy under the likelihood of success factor. Here the court's evaluation is guided by the general notion that “self-inflicted wounds are not irreparable injury.”
- "While the Court anticipates experts will opine that Apple’s 30 percent take is anti-competitive, the Court doubts that an expert would suggest a zero percent alternative. Not even Epic Games gives away its products for free."
- "The Court further recognizes that during these coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) times, virtual escapes may assist in connecting people and providing a space that is otherwise unavailable. However, the showing is not sufficient to conclude that these considerations outweigh the general public interest in requiring private parties to adhere to their contractual agreements or in resolving business disputes through normal, albeit expedited, proceedings."
- "With respect to the Unreal Engine and the developer tools, the calculus changes. The record shows potential significant damage to both the Unreal Engine platform itself, and to the gaming industry generally, including on both third-party developers and gamers. The public context in which this injury arises differs significantly: not only has the underlying agreement not been breached, but the economy is in dire need of increasing avenues for creativity and innovation, not eliminating them. Epic Games and Apple are at liberty to litigate against each other, but their dispute should not create havoc to bystanders."
It's unfortunate that the percentage cut ends up overshadowing the real antitrust issue, which is that Apple (and Google) essentially has the power to make or break any arbitrary business that relies on their platform. They base it on vague and loosely enforced rules, which means companies never know if tomorrow is the end. Having a locked platform in itself isn't an issue. Having an expensive locked platform isn't an issue either.
Having an oligopoly of locked platforms (that are important enough that companies can't ignore) with rules that can change or be selectively enforced and have the power to destroy your business model overnight, is a big problem.
Reducing the cut to 0% still wouldn't change that.
The success of Apple (etc.) are due to choices that developers have made, closing themselves in and then citing anti-trust when they themselves locked the doors and gave away the keys.
General purpose platforms that become overly closed have roundly been rejected or been forced to open up: Carterfone, AOL, Windows, carrier locked phones, etc.. even iOS itself didn't allow apps at first and now does.
Closed platforms for a specific purpose like consoles, kindles, rokus, etc.. do a bit better because they are 1) more likely to have competitors, and 2) have more limited impact from being specific purpose platforms, though are still capable of maintaining monopolies/duopolies.
The phone market is a iOS/Android duopoly, and both are being forced to open up more. Hardly surprising.
With hardware it is different. Nobody forced you to buy an iPhone. Nobody forced you to buy an Android, Windows, Nokia, whatever phone. Same with laptops. If you want an open platform, buy one. If you want an open OS, install one. Don't buy an iPhone, complain about the platform not being open enough for you, and then demand that all platforms be made common infrastructure so that you're absolved of making decisions about the hardware you use.
Imagine if Microsoft required a 30 percent cut for any transaction that is done on a windows PC.
The same exact arguments you are using could justify this. But, obviously, this is illegal, and similar behavior was proven as such, by the courts.
I don't know about legality, but philosophically it's offensive to me that Apple and Google get to be landlords leeching off app developers. I paid for my phone. It should run the software I want it to, and if I want to buy an app for it I shouldn't need to pay Apple for the privilege.
You know why Windows runs code not from the Microsoft Store. It's legacy. There wasn't always a Microsoft Store, running executable straight from floppy, CD-ROM or the Internet was the norm. Changing it now would be changing the product people already bought and break workflows.
iPhone never had that legacy. From day 0 it only ran Apple code. Then it ran 3rd party code via the App Store. There was no such legacy. But there are older products with such a legacy. Didn't your old Nintendo have precisely the same rules from day 0 and so do modern consoles?
Even if you make a case that for Epic it doesn't matter that much, the Hey mail case was another big one: if you try to make a new email service and ignore Apple/Google, you're dead on arrival. That's a problem.
This "We'll let you develop software for OUR X out of the goodness of our heart as long as you promise not to do Y and pay us Z" BS really gets under my skin.
lol I have a feeling everyone here will hate me for saying that though.
The merits of the antitrust part are not supposed to be handled in a TRO. Its purpose is to maintain the status quo and limit possibly irreparable damages while the complex issues are debated in court. Here the 30% cut is important because it's a matter of deciding what a reasonable number would be.
In the case most favorable to Epic, it could be reduced to a lower value after a lengthy court process, but it would not necessarily change the nature of the market / economy. In other antitrust cases, you could have situations where the continued infringement by a near monopolistic entity would indeed qualify for a restraining order as the final judgment would arrive after the smaller competitor would be long dead.
No.
The most favourable outcome would be allowing Epic and others who already have their own sales and payment channels to use them alongside the app store payment system.
I think that's the main reason this lawsuit exists. I don't think Epic or Spotify really want to creat their own iOS app store.
> 2. A competing Epic Games Store app available through the iOS App Store and through direct installation that has equal access to underlying operating system features for software installation and update as the iOS App Store itself has, including the ability to install and update software as seamlessly as the iOS App Store experience. [1]
[1] https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21807251/e..., Exhibit D, Page 2, Point 2.
It seems to be the industry standard App Store cut.
It isn't the 30%! It's that there's only a single way into iOS. It's a literal monopoly, and they are large enough that this matters, now.
It was only natural that some successful company would start the fight on behalf of everyone else thinking the cut is too high.
For users, it could mean the reduction of price but users are just too satisfied, they don't care what the developers think but be pets on the platforms.
"Epic brings ten claims for violations of Sherman Act, the California Cartwright Act, and California Unfair Competition. Based on a review of the current limited record before the Court, the Court cannot conclude that Epic has met the high burden of demonstrating a likelihood of success on the merits, especially in the antitrust context. However, the Court also concludes that serious questions do exist. Indeed, the Court related this action to the Cameron action because there are overlapping questions of facts and law, including substantively similar claims based on the same Apple App Store policies: namely, the 30% fee that Apple takes from developers through each application sale and IAP in the application."
The judge also commented the case is not a slam dunk for either side.
I expect the case is going to hinge on whether or not Epic can successfully convince the judge that the market of "iOS App Distribution" is in fact a valid antitrust market. This is not something that can simply be assumed, as US courts have generally been reluctant to allow antitrust markets to be defined in the context of a single brand's product unless specific circumstances are met. If Epic can't establish "iOS App Distribution" as the relevant market then the court will instead look at Apple's market power in the overall smartphone market, which will make Epic's case more difficult as Apple lacks monopoly power in that market.
To add more color to this, the court refused an injunction to force Apple to enable Fortnite with the Epic payment processing. Epic can remove that and be admitted back to the App store. If Apple refuses at that point Epic would likely win an injunction to force them.
Also, Apple has been repeatedly inviting epic to do this, so there is no reason to believe Apple would refuse anyway.
As for the rest, I have seen far too many “this time, Apple is doomed for real” events to agree with your last sentence. Apple could stop selling any device today and still be around in 10 years.
I think this has been inevitable for some time, but I think by making this mistake they have they they've accelerated the process and damaged their monopoly far earlier than they had to.
Note: Perhaps I am just seeing what I want to see here. I am hopeful that I and other independent software vendors will be able to avoid their app store one day.
This would have a second-hand effect on Epic's ability to provide timely updates to their engine and remain competitive to alternatives like Unreal on the platform. It also would likely lead to a lot of problems with Epic's Game Store on Mac no longer being properly signed.
Apple is likely going down if this goes to trial. Their best interests lie in settling before trial but it doesn't seem Epic is looking to settle.
In this case, the two accounts in question (the one for Fortnite and the one for Unreal engine), while on paper are separate entities, were paid for by the same person, using the same credit card number - so that was Apple's justification for removing both.
As the order shows, the judge still felt it was overreach.
Fortnite's entrapment move was powerful because Apple's actions are more exemplary than their threats.
Perhaps it's time for some major app makers to have a day or two where they pull their apps.
Epic's actions with Fortnite were effectively this. They were aware Apple would pull the app, but that them doing so would give them clear standing to sue Apple for the contract terms.
For even a lot of "major" app makers though, pulling their apps off iOS in protest would put them out of business. (Even where Android excels in market share, Apple excels in revenue share by a wide margin.) By being a large multiplatform entity with more reliance on consoles and desktops, Epic is one of the few companies that can afford the hit to pick this fight.
Literally Joe Biden would hear about it.
Same day take out an editorial or page-sized ad in the Times.
Apple needs apps as much as apps need them, it just takes enough coordination.
If Spotify, Youtube and Netflix all pulled their apps a day after the release of the next phone, Apple would be in serious trouble that year. It would effectively permanently devalue their phones and by proxy Apple, because consumers wouldn't be able to trust that that it wouldn't happen again. It would certainly spook investors.
> and just as obviously Fortnite being restored to the app store is a matter for Epic's lawsuit against apple.
They can easily roll back their TOS breaking update and the game will be available as early as today. The reality is that they broke the rules so they could sue.
Not a single other developer using UE was targeted directly by Apple.
But indirectly. If Epic doesn't have a developer license anymore, they cannot reasonably support their clients in implementing UE on any Apple hardware (and, depending on the licensing terms, they may not even legally support it...).
Or put another way, they have two products at different levels of the stack and they have consciously chosen to risk one (the game) to leverage all their customer’s of their other product (Unreal Engine) onto their side in this war.
* Epic Games, Inc. develops Fortnite and has an Apple developer account that it is released under.
* Epic Games International, S.a.r.l. develops Unreal Engine and holds its own Apple developer account.
So if the accounts of Epic Games, Inc. were closed, who cares. If Epic Games International's accounts were closed, then yes that's wrong of Apple to do.
We can only speculate that UE Developer accounts would have been terminated as we don't really know if Apple was going to terminate those too as they belong to a separate company according to the court documents.
It’s a threat in the long term, if Epic and Apple cannot negotiate something satisfying (which they will eventually, there’s just too much to lose for both of them), but let’s keep some perspective.
The sad part is that Epic's tactics are nothing out of the ordinary for these silicon valley giants, they love using innocent parties as emotional leverage in a fight to pad their profit margins by another couple percent.
Do you mean Uber threating not to hire all it's drivers? Right not they're not employees and they all have become them that's a very different process.
If a company says, "hey, we're a marketplace" and a court says, "actually, you're not" then the company has to figure out how to adapt. There's change and an emotional toll to the drivers in that scenario whether they become employees or not.
There is no requirement for them to be made full-time employees, just employees, and even if the law was unclear before the Dynamex decision, they've had the requirement under that decision for almost 2.5 years. And they've known about it, because they've been actively lobbying to change it, lobbying for Dynamex to be legislatively reversed, lobbying for an exception when it was clear that instead of reversing it the legislature planned to codify it in AB5 and also lobbying against AB5, and finally funding a ballot referendum to repeal AB5. All of that says that they understood the rule, and how it applied to them, for quite a long time.
California Assembly Bill 5 was signed into law last September and was clearly a "Going to Happen" event for at least a year prior.
There's no surprise here. Uber had plenty of time to figure out how to deal with this. And they did: they aren't dummies, this was their plan. Their considered decision was that it was in the best interests of their shareholders to play brinksmanship games with their employees' livelihoods instead of make a good faith effort to comply with state law.
Rulebreaking is, after all, part of the corporate culture at Uber, and it always has been.
Companies shouldn’t be in the position of offering “benefits” to employees. No sane first world company ties health insurance to your employer.
It's inexplicable to me that both employers and employees seem mostly fine with the current insanity. Do business owners enjoy having to be health insurance brokers? Do employees enjoy having their insurance provider change every few years and having very little choice in policies?
I think we should speak more about this fact, so that people think twice before they buy some device.
I only make websites, but I am worried, that at some point, Apple would want me to pay them, so that my website is openable on their devices.
There are so many categories where you cannot load software outside of what the manufacturer provides that you cannot list them. It would also be impractical to allow otherwise for many of these. Then you end up with warranty issues.
Would you allow people to load software of their choice for their automobiles? Tesla is fighting this one now where people are paying a third party to boost their horsepower.
Smart TVs usually are limited by their OS and encumbered by licensing that locks down what can be loaded. This mostly is because of decoding legalities
Who becomes liable if your privacy, assets, or even the device, are compromised because you were able to load software not vetted? Do you want a world where you need a virus scan program for your phone?
I look at it this way, you have a choice in what you buy, because a manufacturer does not adhere to your desire is by no means justification for forcing them to do so.
To be fair, that's only for lack of skills (not blaming people for not having them, but it's the main reason)
I can flash most of my devices with the software I want, my cousin is a rally driver and he hacks into cars ECUs all the times, they are not locked by design, you need the tools and the expertise though
> Smart TVs usually are limited by their OS and encumbered by licensing that locks down what can be loaded.
Not if the are android TVs, you can still side load apps.
Anyway they still work as normal TVs if you completely ignore the "smart" part, iOS devices don't work if you don't authenticate on Apple servers
> Do you want a world where you need a virus scan program for your phone?
Tons of photos, videos and private informations are leaked everyday from iPhones
It is a false sense of security
> because a manufacturer does not adhere to your desire is by no means justification for forcing them to do so.
But it could be because it's breaking some law
In Italy ISPs are forced to let you chose between the ISP bundled modem or the one you buy and release all the information you need to make it work on their networks
If they refuse to comply, you can sue them
People also want to pay no taxes until the police doesn't show up when somebody breaks into their home. Same with health insurance.
Obviously yes.
> Smart TVs usually are limited by their OS and encumbered by licensing that locks down what can be loaded. This mostly is because of decoding legalities
It's because of DRM. Nothing here benefits the customer.
> Who becomes liable if your privacy, assets, or even the device, are compromised because you were able to load software not vetted?
You, the owner, of course.
> Do you want a world where you need a virus scan program for your phone?
Like on Android?
> I look at it this way, you have a choice in what you buy
You don't. That's the whole point of walled gardens, taking that choice away from you.
This is a great example of Orwellian doublethink.
Just like people "love relevant ads" that Google provides People never love gatekeepers or ads. They love secure smartphones and relevant web search results. Users enjoy the benefits a gatekeeper can provide, but they would be just as happy to get the benefits without the downsides.
It was reasonable for Apple to use gatekeeping at first. It was simple and workable. But after more than a decade, they should have something a lot better.
Like app sandboxing and web technology-based apps that can be installed from outside the App Store while maintaining the integrity of your device.
Apple is no longer acting in their users best interests, they're acting in their own. And they're exploiting their market share to do so, in an extremely anti-competitive way.
In the short-term it's a cash grab for Apple and in the long-term its a poison that will eat at the company's foundation. They should even the playing field and compete on it as they do so well.
My two reasons:
1. I bought cellphones before the iPhone. This is nothing new.
2. I don't need everything to run on my phone. The amount of things I can't run on my phone, but wish I could is incredibly tiny, compared to the perceived additional utility my iphone gives me compared to my last Android or dumbphone.
Moreover, I also own a Nintendo Switch and am considering buying a Playstation. I think as a consumer, I am not alone in accepting that certain devices will only run manufacturer approved software.
You certainly are not, but that doesn't mean your opinion is the only valid opinion
I don want to be married, I don't think other people should be forced out of marriage because it's ok for me...
Why not demand to be able to have control over your own devices?
Meanwhile, I already have plenty of devices that I have control over.
That's like asking why not insist that your Tesla Model 3 has a diesel engine, a manual transmission and the ability to crawl up boulders. Not everyone buys things for the same reasons.
You can give Apple initial (and practically temporary if you do not want to take it back) control over the device without actually forcing everyone else to do the same.
> I would have simply bought a different product.
What if you liked everything Apple does except the part about not allowing you to install 3rd party applications?
> That's like asking why...
As i wrote in other posts, these comparisons 99.9% of the time miss important details so they're not helpful. E.g...
> ... diesel engine, a manual transmission and the ability to crawl up boulders.
...these having nothing to do with iOS allowing users to install applications from outside the App Store.
It's dangerous to haphazardly disregard that as meaningless, by extension it's such movements that fight for very valid consumer rights, like actually owning the hardware that people pay money for.
When I buy a piece of hardware I expect to own it, to run on it whatever I want, to be able to repair it, not to be a "tolerated guest" with only limited access and everything thrown my way to make self-repair as difficult as possible by design.
Because many of us feel that the alternative (The nightmare that is the desktop PC application ecosystem) would be far worse, especially on a smartphone.
Is being in control and having choice a nightmare?
Meanwhile the city dweller chooses the opposite for many reasons and makes different concessions, but it suits them.
Neither is these are strictly wrong but to claim one is better than the other _for everyone_ is misguided and is essentially what this argument is here. Pick your own path but don’t presume it’s the right one for everybody and don’t destroy the other’s ecosystem such that they can no longer choose it.
The choice for others to have no choice is not really much of a choice - not only i want to have a choice in what i install on iOS devices but i also want the ability to have a choice available in all of the devices i paid for, especially in an environment where other companies see Apple's success and become too thirsty for it and try to copy them (see Microsoft as an example).
Like others,I prefer Apple to have a tightly controlled App Store and believe that the benefits far outweigh the ability to install software from a 3rd party App Store.
For example, Apple requiring Sign In with Apple (when signin with Google/Facebook are implemented) where you can hide your email address. That’s not possible with multiple app stores. Apple helps lead the way with privacy.
If you want multiple app stores and all that, just buy an Android phone. iPhone is for people like me who want a tightly controlled experience. That’s the way it’s designed. You don’t buy a Corolla and get mad that you can’t off road with it, do you?
What you describe is possible with multiple app stores and allowing 3rd party apps - you just do not use those other stores and apps. Nobody is forcing you to use a 3rd party app store, but Apple is forcing everyone to go through their store.
You can keep your tightly controlled experience by not using anything else than Apple - but that doesn't mean everyone has to be forced to do the same thing.
> You don’t buy a Corolla and get mad that you can’t off road with it, do you?
99.9% of the time such comparisons ignore details and derail discussion, so they aren't very helpful.
Most of my problems have been with restrictions that Apple has put on me in their Mac and iOS product lines.
> Apple requiring Sign In with Apple (when signin with Google/Facebook are implemented) where you can hide your email address. That’s not possible with multiple app stores.
Yes it is. You, as a consumer can choose to stay in the Apple app store where developers have to follow that rule. If a particular developer is only publishing in the non-Apple app store, you can simply use a competing app that is in Apple’s app store. This is the same advice you’d give to someone who doesn’t like Apple products at all... you’d say “Go buy an Android”. In the future though, you’ll only have to say “Go use a non-Apple app store”.
No, but I would get mad if the manufacturer told me what brand of gas I could buy and what roads I could drive on.
As somebody who's been looking and working in it for decades, I don't see it?
To me the actual nightmare are closed walled gardens giving users a false sense of security about the software they offer on their services as supposedly all being "vetted".
And because by now the mobile space is the biggest target there is, malicious actors have shifted their attack vectors accordingly [0].
Even with these walled gardens in place, we've reached a point where the mobile app ecosystem is going trough its own phase of "You need this Norton/McAfee/blah product to keep your device secure/optimized!" just like the PC ecosystem did and still does.
As such the "gatekeepers" have effectively failed at gatekeeping anything that ain't explicit sexual content.
[0] https://www.zdnet.com/article/warning-over-hidden-apps-as-mo...
Now normally I would say that as a company you have the right to legally abuse your userbase however you want, but when you get this big that your profit margin exceeds that of several democratic countries and your particular flavor of abuse is inspiration for product development in general, than I'm going to support you losing that particular privilege.
That is not an artificial restriction. If you take it off road, it will perform as car not designed to be taking off road does. It won't refuse to leave the road to protect Toyota's brand.
Most ship with maleware that can’t be removed (or can’t be removed without giving up on updating the OS.)
Android still doesn’t let you run a lot of 3rd party software (the latest version breaks Termux for example.)
Apple’s anticompetitive behavior also ties people to the platform (iMessage is a great example of this. My family won’t use any other IM app so even if I buy another phone (which I have, it’s supposed to arrive in September) I’ll have to keep my iPhone just to talk to them.)
Finally the hardware is just bad. Qualcomm does not make nice SOCs (IMO) but it could be just because the software they provide with them is complete garbage. There’s no alternative in the US either.
As a former owner of multiple Maemo devices, avid GNU/Linux and FOSS advocate, and user of F-Droid applications when possible, this "nightmare" is a level of control that I dream about having on my phone...
Even though you can say mobile phones are general computing devices, actually for most of the people they are just media consumption devices.
I believe technical restrictions are not enough in this age alone.
As long as they have rules and it is applied fairly and equally, I prefer controlled and regulated market places.
(Yes, I know you can buy computers without an OS and you can buy computes with Linux as well - but not enough to be realistic for most folks. I'm pretty sure you can buy phones with a different OS as well but again, not realistic choices).
On PCs, already pretty much no one uses Linux outside of tech bubbles (and even there, seems like it's behind both Windows and macOS [0]), apparently somewhere around 1-2% [1] among the general population; in practice, it feels like it should be even less, at least based on what mainstream websites I'm familiar with see. And this is for general-purpose computers, where an open OS might have tangible benefits for the general, non-developer/ops public (not sure which, but I guess such a case could be made) – but phones don't seem to be general-purpose computers for most; it seems they're used for media consumption, taking photos, communication, maybe some light gaming, and not much else – all thinks where the existing walled gardens offer a very compelling experience with assurances for security and quality that open platforms might have a hard time delivering.
A truly open smartphone platform would probably face an even harder uphill battle than desktop Linux, and that's already failed to gain traction time and again. You'd need compatible apps for it to gain traction, but who's going to make those? It'd have to offer a really polished UX, I don't see many people picking a clunky, ugly, bug-ridden phone based on GPL vs. proprietary – lots of people (including me) buy iPhones in part because they enjoy their design and UX. How do you make sure apps aren't scattered across lots of malware-infested app stores? How do you make sure people don't inadvertently shoot themselves in the foot all the time if you don't wall them off from choices that might lead to that? But how do you wall off people on a platform that is truly open? And so on, and so on. Unless some tech giant decides their interests align very much with a truly open and relevant mobile OS, I have a hard time seeing it happen – and even then.
The current tech world is much different from when the major desktop environments solidified; this time around, the vast, overwhelming, huge majority of computer users are not enthusiasts or IT professionals anymore like in the 90s, but completely uninterested and uninvested in the tech apart from having it work for them to do relatively simple tasks, similar to what most people outside of the relevant enthusiast bubbles feel towards cars or stoves. I don't want to run Emacs on my stove and maybe blow myself up in the process, I want it to work reliably and safely and just heat my food. I'd actully like no one to be able to tinker at will with safety-critical software in their cars, because their segfaulting Formula 1 brake patch they got from some Facebook page might mean they plow into me and I die.
[0] https://insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2020#technology-de... [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
Oh, the iPhone? Yeah people don’t care. Having Apple vet apps is a benefit, not a curse.
I believe the (weak) answer to the above is the answer to your question. Features are what matters to the majority of users. The ability to sideload apps itself is not.
I don't mind that Apple keeps a large commission. But I mind the fact, that Apple has a monopoly on iOS software distribution, and the monopoly is always bad for the customers.
iPhone does the trick for me in that regard, the app library is huge, the consistent design is great, the way it syncs with my macbook is irreplaceable.
Being blocked from running arbitrary code on a phone is not a big deal to the vast majority of users. If that's a dealbreak, buy an android phone. But lets not pretend that doesn't come with huge tradeoffs if you like what the iPhone provides.
If I want software freedom I’ll use my laptop.
The only devices I get SW from other sources is my computer, phone, and watch -- at least as far as I can recall. And while my computer is a Windows PC and my phone an iPhone - I have never once thought that I'd have access to more/better SW if the iPhone was more open like my PC.
I get what you're saying, but it is so far down the list of concerns for most consumers as to be a complete non-factor.
Android does have a poor status though, the value of it's phones drops precipitously every few months until it levels at $100-$200 a year later, or it was cheap in the first place and good like xiaomi. iPhones don't drop like that.
I don't trust the android ecosystem in the slightest bit (to the extent that I don't like people connecting to my wifi with their random android devices) to be secure, but I could install whatever I wanted.
Because most of them don't really care until it directly impacts them, and because Apple spends a huge amount of money on their marketing.
Because the hardware has a lot of direct advantages (Apple has the best chips) as well as user service lock (iTunes, iMessage).
https://www.macstories.net/stories/before-the-app-store-the-...
https://9to5mac.com/2011/10/21/jobs-original-vision-for-the-...
> This is a quote from the letter that Apple sent to Epic;
>> If your membership is terminated, you may no longer submit apps to the App Store, and your apps still available for distribution will be removed. You will also lose access to the following programs, technologies, and capabilities:"
>> [...]
>> - Engineering efforts to improve hardware and software performance of Unreal Engine on Mac and iOS hardware; optimize Unreal Engine on the Mac for creative workflows, virtual sets and their CI/Build Systems; and adoption and support of ARKit features and future VR features into Unreal Engine by their XR team
> That is a statement that Apple made saying they will stop all help they give to Epic getting UE running on all Apple hardware. With the other stuff in the letter it makes it very clear that the problem is not just one for Epic Games, but all of Epic.
> You can read it yourself - https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-v-apple-8-17-20-768927327.... (Apple's letter starts on page 51 of the PDF)
Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24269719
So they seem to be very specific and specifically call out work on the Unreal Engine.
Edit: not that Epic isn’t right to sue to see if they can get their way, just that they should have sued without violating current terms. My personal belief is that much of the 30% goes to gift card promotions and markup which brings in funds for all developers.
The developer you are talking about didn't break the rules of the app store. Epic -the one with the development of Unreal Engine- is an entirely different legal entity than the one that broke Apple's rules - the forthnite developer. X broke a rule, Apple got pissy and punished both X and Y because both have the same owners. As the judge also acknowledged in the ruling.
I am sure Apple did it to try and bully Epic into settling.
By being forced to reinstate the entire account under anticompetitive scrutiny, its a PR loss for Apple. If Epic had separate dev accounts for its MacOS and iOS presence it would have played out differently.
This was a moonshot by Epic, mostly about the court of public opinion than the actual law.
https://twitter.com/EskilSteenberg/status/129752027579013939...
The Fortnite game wanted to avoid this fee of 30% by making the game free to download, but the users could pay directly inside the game (the payment mechanism did not go through Apple).
If more apps or games do that, Apple would lose a lot of money. Also, Apple App store is the only way to get apps and games into iOS devices. So if I make a game and I want you to play it, and you know me and my game and you want to play it too, Apple is a "third person", who can stop us from doing so.
Non techcrunch link (as I can't access those with ublock/cookie wall blocker)
You can just have no block owners at all. Having two competing kings fighting over the throne isn't "dynamic" democracy.
> Having two competing kings fighting over the throne isn't "dynamic" democracy.
That would be a more dynamic kingship than just having one king with full control over the kingdom. I'm not sure what you want to say here. Dynamism doesn't transform the kingdom in a democratic system. Nor is Apple or Epic part of a democratic battle. You seem to be conflating a bunch of things IMHO.
Apple basically collectively bargains for iPhone users via the App Store. Privacy features, sign-in with Apple, limiting tracking abuse, privacy “Nutrition Facts” and other items will go out the window. Apple will have those in their App Store, but users will make the trade off with privacy to play Fortnite or download a new social media app. Apple makes it so that trade off doesn’t have to happen.
It’s all around awful. I really hope Apple wins this court case.
> I'm not sure what you want to say here
That the Apple platform with the store model has significant disadvantages.
The plain fact is that isn't what the vast majority of customers want. They have time and again showed that what they want is one place where they can all get their apps, and that will also be on their next phone. Google didn't decide that for them, nor did Samsung which has it's own store on it's phones. It's what customers want and have chosen, whether you like that or not.
Yes Google used unsavoury practices, they ran afoul of the EU and were fined Billions, but that's a footnote. We'd be where we are anyway, and stoping those anticompetitive practices hasn't slowed down the consolidation because this is driven by user preference.
a) it is more dynamic than a situation with one king just sitting on his laurels
b) this is not about democracy, this is about competition on markets
Steam on Linux is mostly compatibility hacks so people can play the games they bought. Some games have decent Linux support, but the real value I see in Steam on Linux is all the proton/wine magic/hacks to make games work relatively well without any changes, and frankly it's great.
The rate at which Wine/Proton et al., and Linux gaming in general, has improved in the last few years is staggering.
> GPL software can't even communicate with friends on Steam, isolating the open source community and ultimately turning their devs, if they want to be part of Steam's extensive gaming social network, into serfs for the store.
I have no idea what you mean by this, but I also don't see what the GPL has to do with it. You can easily write GPL software that you sell on Steam which uses all of Valve's features.
apple's market position is causing higher prices for consumers. therefore it should be busted.
we just need to keep the same standard (or better: make it more strict; apple has been abusive for a long time) for when epic becomes the monopoly.
What do you support?
Apparently voting with the wallet means buying status and then complaining about what one has bought.
90% of the youth market uses an iPhone and that's the same market Epic is in. Outside of youths, 50% of the US population uses an iPhone.
Also as a developer whose employer targets Apple devices, I am more than at home with Apple's decisions.
Don't like them? Target Android, Web,..
Check how open are games consoles for a change.
But either way that's not my point. Epic establishing a precedent that restricts the degree to which companies can dominate a supply line and then use that position to skim isn't going to make it easier for Epic to dominate you, the consumer. That's not their objective. That is Apple's objective.
This sounds similar to the current brouhaha happening in the US over America’s inclination towards personal freedom at all cost even when govt regulation could/should step in the make things better.
A concern that once “freedom of choice of App Store” is provided, where does it stop because ultimately those demanding choice will keep demanding aspects be “open up” “for fairness” until iOS isn’t special anymore. Part of what makes it special _is_ it’s regulation, if you don’t want that then “choose” elsewhere. This aspect feels like the problem in the US of big business battling for deregulation which... isn’t always so great.
I’m not saying “Apple is doing it for the people!”, necessarily but Apple is doing it to be Apple, let’s not make everything the same.
No company is allowed to control a market of other companies without oversight. Given that oversight from apple is corrupted it must be provided in other means.
Literally not what monopolized means.
Please steelman the arguments you disagree with.
Big businesses actually battle for narrow carveouts of existing regulations along with the addition of more regulations that are easy for them to handle but hard for newer entrants to handle. Big businesses actually like regulations as long as they're carefully crafted to already match whatever outdated practices they're already following, to hamper competition. Most of this has already happened in the past which is why we have companies like Boeing now who cannot innovate anymore.
So it's not really comparable to partisan politics in the US. You could be right that people are conditioned to talk about things a certain way due to partisanship, but I really doubt that's why there's so many people out their taking Apple's side in a contract spat.
Nonetheless some people have this drug relationship with Fox News. But while very few people on HN may even use Android phones, 100% of congress probably uses an iPhone. They probably use their iPhone ~4 hours a day. 0% use Fortnite (the average congressman probably plays less than 1 minute of Fortnite on average a day).
Nobody's going to come out against their drug.
Without access to those things, it would be difficult for Epic to produce new versions of the Unreal Engine, and game developers wouldn't want to use it any more.
So "difficult" would mean that you need to improvise a bit, but they're still able to develop just like any developer. If you want to put your own cocoapod out, you don't need a developer license to do so and if someone else wants to use your cocoapod they just need their own developer account.
-[1]:https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/17/apple-terminate-epic-de...
Unless Epic is filled with developers that never ever launched their own application not being part of the Epic developer account is an annoyance (and a familiar one for most iOS developers) at most.
You don't need to deploy an SDK the only thing you would deploy are test builds of games that use the updated SDK.
(I'm just speculating here.)
It's not so much about what's technically possible, but about what's legally allowed.
Since XCode is freely downloadable by anyone, does anybody know which tools they are talking about?
You can develop apps for iOS and OS X, and then publish to (a) test device(s) from XCode without one, but that's about it.
As long as my developer account is valid, Facebook's account doesn't enter the equation when I am submitting an app that includes their SDK in any way I can see.
Can someone shed more light on this?
Did I misinterpret your original statement to mean how would the closure of Epic's Apple Developer account impact others (with their own valid Apple Developer accounts) from using their engine within an app they published to the App store?
I understood your question to be "why do I (an app developer) need an Apple Developer account?" A second reading and your response leads me to believe otherwise.
In other words, it's a legal restriction, not a technical one.
With that said, I am naturally inclined to believe that businesses should have a lot of control over the products they create. My baseline is that I want to be as unencumbered as possible in my product vision and the experience I offer my users, and I'd like minimal government restrictions on my desired UX unless consumers' physical health or safety is on the line.
I see the choice of how third parties should be able to create and sell code that runs on a platform I have created as sacrosanct, from the drawing board, up to the day the first unit is shipped, the developer gets to decide. As my code is my own written word, it is akin to my First Amendment right to free speech. However, I'm willing to accept that somewhere along the journey from that very first prototype, to the 1,000,000,000th unit shipped, the equation shifts.
Most products, that is to say non-open source software, by their very nature, are non-trivially anti-competitive in some way. It is the same thing to say that the product is differentiated. I have a BA in Economics, but I'm a long time out of school, so I may be clobbering this definition, but "a product is differentiated in the marketplace to the extend that a product has a feature or benefit or functionality that is not equivalently provided by every other substitute in that market." In order for a product to remain differentiated, it therefore must be non-trivially "anti-competitive". Maybe it makes sense to dive into the definition of that word more deeply, but I don't want to waste your time. My point is simply that "anti-competitive" is synonymous with any market that is not perfectly commoditized. Hopefully it's uncontroversial to claim that "anti-competitive" is not fundamentally bad per se.
It's well recognized that anti-competitive behavior which at one scale is fundamental to a diverse marketplace of products and services which drives innovation, value, and consumer choice, at another scale is used to lock-out potential new market entrants, and enable excessive profitability or rent-seeking behavior. The words "monopoly" and "duopoly" usefully describes the ultimate/penultimate theoretical states of such a market, but they don't adequately describe that various ways we can approach such a limit in the real world. Apple is not a monopoly, but that does not mean that there should not perhaps be elevated limits on acceptable anti-competitive behavior on their part based on the specific facts of their market position.
I think it is also self-evident that it is an extraordinary remedy to judicially limit anti-competitive behavior targeted at a specific company in a competitive market. Indeed when we enjoin a company from making their products function in ways that are quite central to that product's highly differentiated user experience, yes it may grant choice to some customers of that product to operate it in new ways, it is also taking choice away from customers who may have chosen the product for exactly the functionality being target. This to me is an extremely heavy handed remedy, and should only be deployed against a company if it is absolutely warranted based on unlawful conduct by that company.
While the case before the judge today was simply a preliminary hearing on a injunction, and therefore not by any means a ruling on the fundamental issue, we can see this balancing act being employed in the current case. The contract that Epic willingly entered into with Apple and willingly violated is placed in one corner (blocking Fortnite) while the separate contract(s) of developers using Epic's Unreal Engine is placed in another corner. All we know today is that this judge was not willing to allow Apple to retaliate against the violating of one contract by withdrawing from the others, and that the judge was not willing to stop Apple from terminating the first contract after it was willfully violated by Epic. The larger discussion will likely take years to play out.
As things stand, the owner of an iOS device doesn't have the final say on what software runs on their device; they can only install apps that Apple allows them to. There are some who would consider that to be wrong regardless of Apple's size or place in the overall market, even though that's not really what this case is about.
It seems a bit hypocritical even if the percent is lower
If I don't like the cut Epic takes in their store I can go with Steam. Or gog.com. Or itch.io. Or sell things myself on my own website. If I don't like the cut Apple takes in their store on iOS I can go with... nothing.
(2) I've said this before and it's important to understand this: just because a contract says Apple can do something (terminate the contract with Unreal Engine), that does not mean they can do it. If that were the case, the entire field of Contract Law need not exist.
Collective bargaining.
Although I was working on a small Swift game to refresh my mobile app dev skills, but it's on the backburner right now anyway.
HTML5 and WASM —and since you will need one for testing anyway, a Pixel 5/4a, S20 Ultra or Note S20 could be fun for learning Android.
As those of us who target iOS know, they're not transparent, but it's not arbitrary. Thank god. We'd never hear the end of unsolicited opinions about the Touch Bar and HN's annual subscription to the year of desktop Linux.
No, they justify ruining some developers based on some criteria that they then justify with the logic that (a) the developer wouldn’t have had any money if it weren’t for Apple to begin with and (b) they “care so deeply” for the Apple “users” that they can’t allow the developer’s life work (or livelihood) to exist and make any kind of unpleasantness available for consumers to choose.
Then why does Amazon get a special deal?
You can see their calculating ways if you look carefully —can’t have too many fart apps you know, too many fart apps are bad for the user. Nevermind if you have the best fart app ever —you can’t even load it on your friends’ phones or show it to the guy deciding whether or not to give you a scholarship because, you know, a prick in Cupertino who has his own reality that’s pretty far removed from the rest if the world thinks that too many fart apps are an unpleasant experience for all one billion potential fart app users.
Yea silly, but the type of app doesn’t matter when considering questions of “arbitrary” consideration.
to wit fortnite code becomes part of the engine
The PR hit?
Plus the more or less: why is this an emergency when you decided yourself when to violate the agreement?
Is that worth 30% till the end of time? Your argument is like crabs in a bucket -- one crab tries to get a better deal and you pull him down because you have to pay.
Lets say, somehow, Epic manages to get that fee lowered to something more reasonable for everyone. Would you not be happy with that?
Generally, historically, no, this is not anticompetitive, especially given there is another ecosystem with far more market share (but maybe not profitability because more people spend money on iOS apps). Inserting yourself to take a cut for a service or a key component is good business practice, and built the empires that every student in business school or in tech entrepreneurship is taught to emulate. So long as the wealth pie grows, it isn’t rent seeking to keep taking your cut.
What amazes me is that people think iOS and Apple (and even Android and Google) are near-permanent fixtures that should be regulated as utilities, rather than a temporary incumbent that will eventually be disrupted as the world changes.
Microsoft’s reign of dictating terms to ISVs a lasted around 20 years. They’re still incredibly profitable and still take a cut of almost every PC sale (or XBox game / movie / tv show sale). They don’t have the clout they used to because the tech changed.
At some point, new things will come, such as AR/VR, and we may see companies such as Valve and Oculus/Facebook become the new tech ecosystem dictators. The winner takes all dynamics of platforms seem to make this inevitable. Why enshrine Apple and Google as utilities now, when they’ll be less relevant in 10 years?
If you would have told me 20 years ago that the creator of an operating system would take a 30% cut of every piece of software sold, I would have thought you crazy. If you would have told me Apple or Microsoft would dictate to me what software I could run, I would have considered that a massive invasion of freedom. But today this model is considered totally normal and encouraged.
We aren't seeing other companies competing with this model on price or freedom -- we see companies wanting to enforce their own control and get their own 30% cut. Microsoft has tried it. Google is doing it. Oculus does it. Apple will certainly bring it MacOS.
As software developers and users, is that really what we want?
Besides, the issue here isn't that Epic doesn't think the Apple rules don't apply to them. They want to raise attention to how unfair the rules are, in the hope of getting Apple to change their stance either voluntary or through the court system. I think too much money is at play here for Apple to make any voluntary concessions here, but even if Apple wins (likely outcome) a track record of being sued for unfair business practices will hopefully benefit everybody in Apple's ecosystem in the long term.