Microsoft backs Epic against Apple in legal fight over Unreal Engine on iOS
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Tim Sweeney is the epitome of geek success. Hes a self-made wildly successful programmer-businessman with nerd-cred that rivals John Carmack. It's sad to see that he is not getting enough support here. (I fully accept that MS is probably just backing the anti-apple sentiment in this case)
Really? Despite the hand wringing Apple is not a majority of the market, nor anywhere near market capture MS was during the antitrust days. That did nothing to alter Microsoft's perch. The only thing knocking MS off the top of the hill was the innovation of the smartphones/tablets.
For me the appeal of the iPhone is the walled garden. It just works. No, it's not perfect but it's way better than general purpose computers. Which I also use and also have their place.
To me iOS is an appliance. A tool. Pick it up, use it and move on. No thinking about managing/maintaining it is required. It's why for many of my family iPads are their primary computing devices. Because they don't want computing devices - the want devices that will let them surf the web, talk with friends and family and do other tasks. Period. They don't give a rats ass about "computers" (hint - an opinion shared by the majority of people on this planet, whether we like it or not).
Why isn't there room for both models? Why can't there be tightly managed platforms, totally open platforms and then anything in between? The mere existence of iOS doesn't prevent people who don't want the rules imposed by iOS to pick some other solution. Yet ironically you want to dictate to Apple how they should be able to run their platform while complaining they are too restrictive?
And as I made in another comment, the hypocrisy of Microsoft in particular on this is hilarious. I'll take them seriously on this subject when the Epic Store shows up on Xbox Live and MS isn't taking a cut out of it either.
To be supremely clear - You can support convenience without compromising on these ideals. What you seem to be alluding to is a "kiosk" / zero-maintenance feature, or an OS mode with stripped down functionality that makes things simple and convenient for people who need it. I am not opposed to such functionality whatsoever. It is an orthogonal issue to having control over your own computing devices.
>Why isn't there room for both models? Why can't there be tightly managed platforms, totally open platforms and then anything in between? The mere existence of iOS doesn't prevent people who don't want the rules imposed by iOS to pick some other solution. Yet ironically you want to dictate to Apple how they should be able to run their platform while complaining they are too restrictive?
What choice are you referring to exactly? Or rather, is there even a choice in the market?
Has the market "spoken"? Things don't just happen by themselves. What's wrong with demanding things from companies? Don't we demand that manufacturers stop using supply chains that exploit slave labor? Don't we demand companies spend money on workers' safety? Don't we demand that companies pay a living wage? Don't we demand companies to respect our privacy? Don't we incentivize companies to donate to good social causes? These things were considered not mainstream-important at one point in time. What a horrible time we would be living in, if people would have just said "take it or leave it". Even in a capitalist society, we have a long history of getting companies to focus on things way more important than money.
I don't think the parallel to MS is correct. Imagine if instead of simply allowing IE to access private Windows APIs, Microsoft instead banned all non-Microsoft approved software from even running on windows and took a 30% cut of those they do approve.
Right?