Fortnite of course expected this: seems like they’ve prepared a short video mocking Apple’s old super bowl ad 1984 to premiere in an hour https://twitter.com/fortnitegame/status/1293984290326433792?...
The strategist in me thinks that Epic Payments is a provocation rather than a product, they've been in touch with state attorney generals about Apple's antitrust situation, and the real goal is to get that lawsuit out, bring the antitrust hammer down on Apple, and maybe get some free PR and marketing from the press cycle.
That's the DEFINITION of "constitutional state"/"state of law".
It means the government can't just arbitrary bend the law if it fit's them on a case-by-case basis. If they want change they need to make a new law.
Even if Epic did act out on apple because of Chinese support the US has to handle the case fairly on basis of the facts of Apple abusing there marked power (which they obvious do, through not necessary illegally). Then, after or parallel to this they can decide how to handle the Chinese involvement, but this MUST NOT affect the given suite. That kinda what being a "constitutional state"/"state of law" is about. It's about being able to rely on the law being uphold independent on weather you family (or investors) might be crime lords or foreign powers or whatever.
Seems kinda hypocritical that they’re taking this stance when their licensing model is arguably just as burdensome on developers.
In my opinion, Epic should not put their app on the App Store if they don’t like the terms, just as they would tell a developer to not use their engine if they don’t like the terms.
Only those that make >$1mil lifetime gross.
I don’t think Epic are against fees so much as against ones as high as in the App Store.
Apple has a monopoly on 1/2 of Smartphones users in the US, Android the other.
This is a totally different scenario that 'choosing component vendors'.
The App store comission is like Apple charging you 30% anytime you sell one of those goods to someone who lives in an Apple branded house. (To complete the analogy, maybe you're a door to door salesman and Apple charges you a "sidewalk usage fee" or something)
One (Unreal Engine) is a licensing agreement for a tool with no upfront cost; the other is a tax on any sale made to an end user.
If a developer doesn't like Apple's terms, there are no viable alternatives for iOS distribution.
I don’t know why people feel it’s their undeniable right to be able to provide an app to iOS users.
It’s just very few users have any real ability to affect that sort of change.
Overall this will go over most law makers heads because they are technically incompetent.
This is why antitrust laws exist - sometimes the market realities make this nearly impossible.
The feature/capability parity between the platforms means they are, in fact, both capable of serving these markets. But people want to vote with their dollars in the iOS ecosystem, and now the players want to change that ecosystem.
I'm not entirely convinced that this is Apple's problem, in as much as it is Google's fault for not fostering a properly competitive revenue delivery platform, even though it has the maturity and standing to do so.
Also for some serivces iOs users are the large majority, like more or less any "real premium" service (Like apps you have to pay 10 or so+$ a month or 100+$ when buying them).
Anti trust laws (or competition laws) tend to apply to players with an clear control over the market, monopolies that stifle competition. Apple has ~14% of the mobile market, compared to Android's ~86%. I'm curious about how this will play out as it might have an impact in other sectors where smaller players by market share exercise a bit too tight control.
Don't know about tablets, but I feel it's not different.
Rephrased:
> I don't know why people feel it's their undeniable right to install the apps they want on iOS.
- Yes, every shmuck who buys only iOS cause Apple is the status symbol undermines everyone's ability to choose. But we'd need a consumer union to go after these monopoly-aiders as scabs. Ha ha ha not going to happen.
- All the other hardware manufactures are so shitty and quality control and integration that they are also responsible. Do we wait for Moon's party to break up Samsung so Apple gets more competition? Tell Taiwan to break up TMSC or do more direct-to-consumer?
Fundamentally we have the perfect storm of outsourcing and low quality, precarious Americans looking for status, and nationally-tinged monpolies. The idea solutions are just out of reach in the short term, so I support putting iOS on a stupid pedestal to break up Apple's exclusionary vertical integration.
There is a history here where using your market position in one area to force your product in another as being illegal (see the recent EU fine against Google for "abusing their Android monopoly" for example: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_... ). Apple seems to be crossing that line rather brazenly.
If Apple is using its market power to increase profit at the expense of reducing selection and/or increasing prices for consumers, then that's a very serious problem. It's exactly the reason antitrust laws exist.
But are they competing or parallel markets? Does Apple changing pricing or terms on the App Store drive business to other app stores, as replacements, or do software vendors choose which app stores to distribute with based on whether each provides a benefit worth the price, but not whether it is a better deal than some other store?
I think that under market/pricing power tests, Apple’s software distribution business in the App Store is not that unlikely to be a monopoly.
Now, establishing consumer harms from the way the leverage that monopoly to extract rents and dictate terms to software vendors might be less straightforward than it would be for a B2C monopoly, and in the US, at least, consumer harm is the key adverse impact from monopoly abuse that justifies legal consequences.
Consider you not being able to:
- buy train tickets under iOs
- check-in into a hotel under iOs
- do video conferences
- chat with your friend
- cross play with your friends
- open your apartment doors
- check your health data
- do online banking
- securely check your email
- do Ueber, Rbnb, etc.
- buy at Amazone
- etc.
Sure many (but not all) things might be doable over web interface but this crates often much more frictions and due to constraints put onto web interfaces and PWS also has often much worse UX, not providing service for millions of iOs users is often deadly and providing competitively shitty service isn't anygood either, even worse if you have to compete with Apple itself which gives there apps unfair advantages beyond not needing to pay the 30% cut.
Let's be honest any marked which covers millions of people should be handled as a standalone marked even if you could argue it's just part of a bigger marked by any government or you fail your people (and the free marked idea IMHO, but reasoning about this is tricky as it involves considering how the marked dynamics have fundamentally changed and how thinks which would have worked in benefit for the population don't work anymore in the current times and therefore how the marked (laws) has to adapt to it).
If a developer doesn't like Apple's terms, there are other phone platforms.
If you forgo the iOS platform, you lose out on the vast majority of mobile app revenue. Android may have greater market share than Apple but iOS dominates the market among people who actually buy apps (mostly affluent people in western countries).
I think people need to stop looking at their own immediate interests and start considering long term aspects of things. You can't just throw out technology now without understanding how it empowers bad actors, because it amplifies them too.
Desktop software, for a long time, did not have the notion of specialized app stores or enforcing signed programs. Yes, Windows has loads of security issues. But surely this can be a problem that can be solved over time?
Apple cares about their hardware customers and fosters a well-earned trust. The AppStore rules are a huge part of the foundation of that trust.
What's Microsoft's parallel motivation in your analogy?
They should go ahead and do that, then make an OS and mobile devices built around their store, so I have an option other than iOS devices when I want someone in my life who's not a tech nerd to have a reasonably safe and usable computing experience that's still very robust and doesn't require any work on my part. That would be competition and improved consumer choice.
I want more options that deliver the experience Apple does (or better! Please!) rather than fewer. That's the choice I want. I've got tons of only-nerds-can-use-them-safely computing options. I don't need more of those.
Phone run everything from games over office apps to unlocking you apartment doors or handling the check-in at a hotel (yes some hotels have app based check-in).
(And in the end Apps is just a handy short form of Application, so you could say even the name kinda implicates this ;=) )
- A general purpose hardware with specific less general purpose hardware extensions.
Where they differ:
- By default allowing "mostly" any legal kind of software, but then putting absurd constraints on it.
- By default only allowing games and some multimedia and maybe then putting absurd constraints on it (maybe because idk tbh).
I.e. even with apples constraints iOs operates as a general purpose platform while XBox/PS5/Switch do not.
But they are general purpose computing devices with built-in malware that makes the device only useful for the types of computing the seller wants you to do with the device. And that's gaming, of course
Right. Apple's terms were clear from the start, so Fortnite had no reasonable expectation to be allowed to violate them. Just like Fortnite could have chosen to use a different game engine if they didn't like the terms of a particular game engine, they could choose to focus on non-Apple platforms (or choose to abide by Apple's terms on Apple's platform) if they don't like Apple's terms. I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Which is why the game engine comparison is a bad one.
Lots of opportunities for mobile distribution though. Apple is what, < 20% of the mobile market? (I know where you're coming from, but this is what Apple's legal team will say).
Perhaps PWA+WebGPU will solve this.
.. not covering the iOS marked is for some products not viable and might literally lead to insolvency in the long run.
Today you can tell people that you don't provide a game on e.g. X Box and they might not like but accept it. But you can not tell people that their premium mail service has no iOs app or that they team meating software has no iOs app or that their <insert any software covering a group of people> app doesn't work on iOs.
Tbh. it's probably somewhat true for tipple A massive multiplayer games and games consoles, too.
Edit: "do" -> "can"
And that’s a big fraction of their services. https://www.thestreet.com/investing/google-pays-apple-billio... estimates that at $9.48 billion over 2018.
Downloadable is nominal outside of store. I had millions of downloads back in 2005 timeframe and we never even looked at file hosting cost.
retailers pay suppliers some wholesale cost for their goods. doesn’t seem like an analogous situation to a marketplace that takes a fixed cut of every sale.
It's now 30% for the first $10 million, 25% for $10-$50 million, and 20% thereafter.
Also relevant here would be Epic Games Store, which is 12%. Also relevant here, is payment processors are way, way less than 30%, which is all that's used/needed for in-app purchases.
Given publicly reported financials for Apples services gross margins imply a break even around 10%, I doubt any successful App Store offering similar services could survive on less than 15%.
Not for in-app purchases they don't, which is why I specifically called that one out. The game provides all the UX there to find & purchase the items, the game "delivers" the resulting purchased goods, etc... All the app store does in that case is facilitate payment. No different than, say, Square.
One of the biggest developer benefits is Apples app reviews process. While not perfect for devs, it helps ensure customers feel safe buying my apps free of the risk of viruses, malware, and fraud ware. That sells more of my apps.
If you don’t understand these things, you don’t understand your customers.
I’m not saying it’s right but it’s pointless being shocked by the hypocrisy of the logic that businesses are run by.
I don't know how effective something like this would be, wouldn't this just incentivize hiring people that fit your political agenda?
For instance let's say you hire a bunch of Chinese/Indian immigrants on H-1B visas, they'll just vote in people that benefit China/India
Also the 1997-2011 era Apple probably wouldn't have worked under a law like this
That's what all companies already do: the political agenda of every publicly held large company today is to please its shareholders, and only to please its shareholders. The proposal changes the political agendas of large companies so that they also have to please their workers and communities.
> For instance let's say you hire a bunch of Chinese/Indian immigrants on H-1B visas, they'll just vote in people that benefit China/India
Kind of a pessimistic view of humanity there. Immigrants are just as good as native-born citizens at collectively deciding what's best for the organization they work in.
> Also the 1997-2011 era Apple probably wouldn't have worked under a law like this
Apple would certainly be different, but so would its competition.
Taking a 30% cut of all future revenue from the game just because they established the initial install is waylaying!