https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/129691854162779341...
> Apple's statement is misleading. You can read my email in Apple's filing, which is publicly available. I specifically said in Epic's request to the Apple execs, "We hope that Apple will also make these options equally available to all iOS developers..."
Even if Apple agreed to the demands and made the options available to all developers, Epic would have an advantage.
They also have the advantage of being a trusted brand, whereas the games space is full of scammy apps. There’s a reason google specifically requires IAP in that space.
Right now you don’t have to trust a game developer on apple or google to pay them. With Epic’s change, big brands would get a trust afvamtage they could use to increase their dominance.
So asking to make the changes Epic requested was more self serving than it seems. Lowering apple’s commission would benefit all developers. But own IAP and separate app stores would benefit big developers, like epic.
They wouldn’t be competing on underlying frameworks though. Epic’s letter asked Apple to extend its app install frameworks and related frameworks to competing app stores.
So the only point of competition would be price, or marketing savvy. This seems to resolve to my point above: reducing Apple’s cut would benefit all developers.
Not clear how the rest does, except perhaps indirectly by forcing Apple and Google to surrender their businesses. And big developers would have a relative advantage. It’s not that small developers would have to run an app store: it’s that the ability to run an app store provides relatively more advantage to large companies who can.
Whether small developers had an absolute improvement might depend on whether prices dropped to match the lower cost structure.
Epic also wants anyone to be able to install apps on ios outside app stores. See point #2, app stores and apps available via direct install. This would lower trust in apps. The trust of the app store has led to an explosion of developer revenue. Not obvious that dismantling this system will help small developers.
Other example a kind makes a small mobile game and shares it with his friends , except his cousin is using iOS so he can't install and play it.
All this things you can't do on iOS is not because Apple is incapable of allowing this scenarios, is because this is not in Apple financial interest.
I assume someone would say something about security, the kid would maybe put code to steal your pictures, then my answer is the sandbox is garbage if you can trick it or trick the user to give full access for a small game and a competent developer would have placed code to fake data if needed.
Apple is getting greedy and pretending it acts for the user is getting harder and harder and eventually they will reach the limit, starting a fight with Epic will cost them more on the long run IMO because it makes more mainstream Apple practices that we on HN already knew but regular people did not know.
Epic had (/has?) this with Android and gave up because... reasons?
So Epic wants both Google and Apple to abandon their security models and allow direct installs of apps.
Phones have been an enormously popular computing platform in significant part because of the security model. Non-technical users can use them easily and reasonably trust the apps they install. Epic is asking for a rather radical shift.
>and reasonably trust the apps they install.
That seems like an illusion though to me.
https://www.cvedetails.com/top-50-products.php
Android comes in at #2 for number of distinct vulnerabilities and iOs at #8 both in the top ten and both above windows of all things. Which rings in at #10 for 7 and #13 for 10. OsX sits at #4.
The point of the single-source App Store is that the app review creates a line of defense against such trickery, on behalf of the user.
Android has always been a shitshow,so the gnu link is unsurprising - however I did not find an example of iOS malware.
1. How much less secure would Android be without even the play store’s security measures?
2. How much harder would people work to find vulnerabilities on such a ubiquitous platform used by non-technical users if any app could be installed?
You would likely get more malware and more app hesitancy.
More malware, possibly, though android has plenty of that even with the play store. But, app hesitancy, maybe from a small subset of people, but i feel like those same people already show app hesitancy.
Only from my own experience, but i treat apps from the app stores about the same as i do random apps from the internet and do the same thing to verify in both situations, look at reviews and information about the app and make my judgement based on those. It's the same either way. All app stores do in my mind is aggregate reviews to one place, whether it's the play store, the apple store or the steam store, etc. I trust each of them about as much as something such as apk mirror, in all cases, i'm relying on the opinions and information provided by others that have used the app, if no such information is available, i consider it suspect and avoid.
The method acquire an app isn't what invokes trust, it's other user verification, no matter whether that app came from a store, a repo, a random website or any other method software can be delivered and it always has been, since the days of floppies.
You still need to exercise caution with permissions, but an individual app itself has pretty strict limits. Most of the security flaws are tied to the OS itself.
Which was the point of my original comment, that phone OS's provide the illusion of being more secure, while being about as secure as any other platform.
From what I can tell, computers are about as secure as they've ever been, whatever the kind, which is, alright depending on the user. It's always been like that and still is.
App stores and sandboxes haven't changed that.
Is it 100% secure? No. Is the user experience that I desire available due to app stores and sandboxes? Yes.
But it does highlight the problem here.
Let's say I take epic at their word, that this is not okay (and I'm tempted, this whole judge jury and executioner thing is ridiculous. Apple has now said that they regret that they can no longer spend time with Epic on making sure the Unreal engine runs well on mac hardware. That is so close to 'nice house you got there. Would be a real shame if something happened to it' it makes the hairs on my neck crawl).
What then? Sideloading with security measures is something google has but that's according to epic not good enough (and I'm again tempted to agree).
But clearly some free for all fiesta is no good for the users. And I don't think governments, certainly no the US government and probably not the EU either, are capable of defining the playing field, this stuff is too complicated.
So... what then?
I would hope that Apple (and Google) realize that this fight has only users, and the name of the game is to walk the line so that nobody is pissed enough that you end up with exactly what just happened. And it looks like apple has decided they like the hole they are in, as it sure looks like they are frantically digging.
They probably listed in the Play Store in order to get standing to sue Google.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/13/21368395/fortnite-epic-ga...
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21759099/f...
One thing that would enable is narrow appstores with active curation—sort of what Apple promises but, if the store is fully of scammy games, doesn't quite deliver. A company could run a game-specific store with much stricter requirements than Apple's store.
As a user instead of going to one private, trusted and secure store I now have to visit dozens. All of which are going to be competing on price which means they will look to sell my user data to make money.
And what makes anyone think that the App Stores will simply not be dominated by Amazon, Epic, Valve etc like most gaming is today. In which case this is all about transferring money from one large corporation to another.
Didn’t even occur to me. It’s the obvious way app stores can earn money if there was some legislated effort to cut the commission fee and force multiple stores.
If I don't want to sell my product on the App Store, or if I have to make you pay more for it, I risk losing you as a customer. That's a trade-off every developer is aware of. Most apps that can publish on the App Store, will still publish on the App Store. On the PC, Epic sometimes has to shell out a lot of money to get an exclusive release, because a lot of people just use Steam.
However, a lot of apps can't publish on the App Store, because of the strict anti-competitive rules.
The repository model is basically the best of both worlds, from my perspective.
Yes going around to different stores to find the best price is annoying, but you are under no obligation to do it. You can't say shopping around is a worse experience for the end user because it is a problem entirely of their own making. If shopping around is that much of a hassle you could always just stick to the Apple App Store.
Same with Netflix, and Hulu, and Prime, and Disney, and HBOgo, and on and on and on. As a user it’s on my shoulders to navigate all this complexity. Yuck!
This whole “single AppStore” thing is only a big problem to developers. That’s why it gets so much attention and air time here because only developers whine about it and we are all developers. As an end user I just want one app distribution system to worry about.
Imagine if toilet paper is only sold at walmart, and paper towel is only sold at target. This already happens for some things of course, and for those in physical stores it's still annoying. This is a large part of the reason I shop on Amazon. Most stuff I want are there.
If epic wins, they’ll eventually raise prices and reap all the profits. Why wouldn’t they?
This is a problem because each of these stores use their own proprietary client. If instead they all used a public API then there could be an open source client that can access any of the stores.
We of course already have a possible client: the web browser. It works great for all sorts of e-commerce sites. It just doesn’t work for installing games from these stores. That could be changed, though.
I think if Apple is forced to open iOS to alternative stores, then I would like to see an API based approach. Force all the stores to compete within the same app, so they’re only competing on price and selection.
Companies with power and leverage won’t switch to an “open api” and generic ui. It’s better for them to offer their own proprietary experience and to be able to improve it.
Even if what you described was something companies would buy into... sounds like instead of N App Store programs to run, there’s be N App Store websites/urls to visit. what about payments? You’d need a trusted platform operator to avoid everyone having their own payment system and users having to enter details multiple times.
Also API to WHAT? Every App Store on windows has api access... to the os and install mechanisms. Any further value add services will require a trusted online partner (payments, security reviews, downloads?).
Gog Galaxy already exists, too.
Competition focuses on price with a presumption that quality won’t suffer because users will switch. Well that isn’t necessarily so, it’s a hope rather than a hard fact. There are many examples, that I leave as an exercise to the reader, where a customer “chooses” a lower cost item with poor quality, including harmfully so.
I don't know that that's the case. Steam, the Humble Store, GOG and Microsoft (just to name a few) would all be happy to compete if the terms were right.
Epic “Google put up scary warnings about downloading apps outside of the Play store may cause security issues”
Also Epic:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/08/fortnites-android-vu...
A multitude of App Stores on iOS would create competition among the stores themselves. For instance, if you want to publish on the Epic Store, they only take a 15% cut, therefore games on there can be cheaper.
Lastly, who says you need to run an app store to publish apps? Being able to publish directly is viable on other platforms, after all. iOS has a good-enough security model so that even malicious apps are limited in what they can do. Apple does not and can not scan for malicious behavior within that security framework anyway.
They have been doing this since the beginning of the App Store.
We know they scan binaries for use of private APIs so it wouldn't surprise me if they are looking for other ways to get around the OS.
I don't think it's too far-fetched to think that Tim Sweeney wanted to negotiate bringing the Epic Store to iOS. The Epic Store is one of the bigger stores on PC after all, so he might think that Epic would be able to get an exception.
I do however agree that it can be read both ways.
1. https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/21/21396313/apple-fortnite-l...
Why are people so attached to a greedy corp worth 2 trillion whose entire business rely on child and exploitative labour, has avoided billions in taxes, has been bullying others legally, don't want you to own anything or repair (climate?), etc?
People who have overused whataboutism as a logical fallacy to stop an argument are doing the same today themselves.
Apple is not willing to make the changes necessary to allow us to provide Android customers...
The special deal language instead comes from an unlinked declaration from Phil Schiller. It is unclear if this is actually a court filing. It may simply be a document Apple distributed to the media. If anyone can source that quote to an original document I’d appreciate it.
The court filing: https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.364265...
No.
> Does lying to the court only get you in trouble if you're on the witness stand and have been sworn in?
No, baseless filings, motions, etc., can be subject to sanctions, often for the attorneys involved.