Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

> just a bunch of legal departments having a fight.

At the expense of the users, in both the figurative and the literal sense of the word.

It's not even legal departments having a fight, it's Tim Sweeney tilting at windmills

I 100% believe that 3rd party app stores is a hill Apple is willing to die on. I would guess they're more likely to get rid of "apps" entirely than open up their ecosystem.

> would guess they're more likely to get rid of "apps" entirely than open up their ecosystem.

You believe they'd rather give up the iPhone than compromise on a more consumer-friendly ecosystem policy?

Maybe. We're talking about the same company that only allows their software to run on their own hardware. It looks like having full control of the entire user experience is a sacred rule that they must never break.

They break it sometimes - iCloud and iTunes on Windows, Apple Music on Android.

The iPhone had PWAs (under a different name) before it had the App Store though.

I'd wager most App Store apps on the iPhone could be ported-over to PWA and retain 90% of their functionality - and people would still buy the iPhone.

Looking at my Settings > Screen Time history for the past week, these are the apps I use the most (in no particular order) and how I feel they would work as a PWA:

1. Microsoft iOS Remote Desktop Client: this could be a PWA with a WebSocket+<canvas>-based interaction surface.

2. Twitter: there's nothing I use in the iOS native app that can't be done in their web-app.

3. Google Maps: I think I'd be okay if I had to use the built-in Apple Maps instead.

4. Telegram / WhatsApp / Slack etc: Apps like these can't be used offline anyway, so being PWAs web-apps is also fine. As Slack is an Electron App (on Windows at least) then porting it over to a PWA is straightforward.

5. Authy / Google Authenticator / Azure Authenticator: I'll admit this is one that can't be done properly as a PWA right now because there's no way to reliably and securely persist client-side secrets.

6. Star Walk: this is one that can't be PWA: while the 3D world can be rendered in a WebGL <canvas>, it needs a large offline data cache and PWAs can only store 50MB presently (and that's 50MB as text, not binary data).

Most of the other apps I use are Apple's own or built-in to the device (iWork, Notes, Camera, iMessage, Mail, etc).

As for games: I stopped buying and installing iOS games on my phone and iPad a few years ago because there's no way to reliably download and "keep" games and apps you've bought indefinitely (e.g. as IPA files). Once a publisher removes an app or game from the App Store and you've removed it from your phone then you're SOL - you will get a refund if you contact iTunes Customer Support, but I view games as art - and the idea for a games publisher to unilaterally prevent me from accessing content I've paid for is horrible and reeks of Orwell's Memory Hole.

(Besides games-as-art that I've bought... and lost, the only other types of games I see in the stores are crass freemium bollocks - and I won't let myself get hooked on that business model).

(I think the last game I ever got from the App Store was "Rainbrow" ( https://apps.apple.com/us/app/rainbrow/id1312458558 ) - which was an experimental game using the then-new iPhone X's face detection camera where you move a character on-screen using your eyebrows - that was almost 3 years ago).

PWA are super broken on iOs because Apple want you to publish a webview in their appstore, so they don't care about maintaining the PWA APIs.

WebView support and PWA support largely both depend on the same set of functionality (disregarding Cordova/PhoneGap).

If Apple decides to arbitrarily disable some functionality in PWAs but not in-app WebViews then they're going to have a hard-time defending that, as all new web-standards specifications are built around privacy in-mind (as that seems to be Apple's overriding reason for not implementing some web-standard specification that benefits PWAs).

If there only are PWAs, then there's no store and no 30% cut and so Epic wins I guess? They'd "just" need to port UE4 to WASM

Already done: https://docs.unrealengine.com/en-US/Platforms/HTML5/GettingS...

But PWAs aren't really suitable for Unreal Engine because of Apple's 50MB size-limit.

And honestly, getting rid of apps would do wonders to the openness that all these app developers are complaining about.

Ultimately if Apple bends if will be good for the users in the long run. That's what matters.

And if Apple doesn't bend, we need antitrust action against these monopolies anyways.

People keep making this argument regarding the App Store but that’s not how monopolies are defined. Apple might have strict control over their walled garden but their walled garden itself isn’t the only walled garden. As such, people can buy different handsets running different operating systems and thus use a different repository on them. The fact that Apple don’t allow other repos on iOS doesn’t make it a monopoly in the legal sense because that would be like walking into a high street supermarket and demanding they stock a competitors own brand. If, however, that happened to be the only (or within a slender margin of that) supermarket chain in the country and they still refused to work with a specific supplier who makes a competing product, then there might be grounds to file for antitrust.

But Epic did start an antitrust case, and so far a judge has found that “serious questions do exist” and granted a temporary restraining order. That wouldn’t have happened if Epic was as obviously wrong about the monopoly question as you say. https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21814075/c...

You’ve cherry picked a sentence there but the full paragraph actually has a less optimistic tone:

> 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.

So no, a judge hasn’t suggested there is a winnable antitrust case here but he has acknowledged there are serious questions regarding unfair competition.

You’re right, the judge has not ruled that Epic is likely to win the lawsuit in the end, given that the case only just started. But you claimed that iOS was clearly not a legal monopoly, when Epic is suing to establish this point and a federal judge has entertained the argument and made orders based on it.

That’s not what the document actually says though. It says Epic games has filed a case with 10 claims, some of which are categorised as antitrust but none of which actually state the term “monopoly” (remember antitrust rules doesn’t just apply to monopolies). And again, it’s worth remembering that document demonstrates that even those antitrust claims weren’t well received by the judge.

Unless you can find another court document that does specifically mention the individual claims and states the word “monopoly”? The only references I can find is tabloid-level journalism covering the story (ie using vague summaries with common language rather than legal jargon accurately). If you can I’ll happily accept that the “monopoly” point is at least currently under legal dispute. But I can’t find any evidence to support that claim.

You can find this in Epic's filing. As you point out, Epic's federal antitrust claims were not as well received as their claims based on California law at the temporary restraining order stage, but they have not been finally resolved. https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/epic-v-apple-8-17-20-768927327...

> Apple conditions app developers’ access to app distribution through the App Store on their agreement to use Apple’s IAP to process all their customers’ in-app purchases of in-app content ... Epic is likely to prove that this conduct is: (a) tying per se; (b) an unreasonable restraint of trade under Section 1 of the Sherman Act under the rule of reason; (c) unlawful maintenance of a monopoly under Section 2; and (d) a denial of access to an essential facility under Section 2.

The current situation is called a duopoly. There are 2 walled gardens with approximately 50-50% revenue share in the developed world. One makes it almost impossible to distribute your own app on these, the other makes it just very hard. Both should be broken up, it's a bleak distopia that 2 companies headquartered a few miles from eachother decide who can publish software on mobile devices.

Indeed but that wasn’t the point I was making. I was saying those who argue the App Store as a monopoly (ie because it’s the only repository on iOS) miss the point of what a monopoly legally means.

I agree what we have is a duopoly.

I don't get this argument. The walled garden is something users opt into because it has benefits.

iPhone user here. I did not opt into a walled garden for the benefits. I am in this walled garden because I happened to buy an iPhone 10 yeas ago and now I'm locked in.

you... You don't have to keep buying iphones.

Switching to another platform is hard. That's why it's called a walled garden.

If Apple bends it will be to settle and cut a special deal with Epic.

They will never let it go far enough to truly threaten their walled garden.

> If Apple bends it will be to settle and cut a special deal with Epic.

But then who isn't going to want to take their place and get their own "special deal"?

It's possible Apple would then proactively reach out to the largest developers to make similar deals, but the risk is pretty low to Apple if it takes a company willing to launch a multi-year lawsuit costing millions and millions of dollars; many companies, even large ones, don't have that cheddar.

I don't know that that's gonna be enough for Sweeney at this point.

> if Apple bends if will be good for the users in the long run.

Im a user, and it will be very bad for my security and privacy of my data.

Currently, Epic’s existing users on iOS are able to make in-app purchases without paying Apple’s 30% fee, which is literally saving them an expense. They are better off than before. Epic being blocked from issuing updates may eventually make them worse off (and it makes prospective new users worse off).

No, not the users. It's Epic not paying Apple's 30% cut. You have that backwards.

They specifically lowered the price when buying without Apple payment processing.

When preparing for a battle like this that's basic optics. Get the users on your side. But don't be fooled for a minute, in the end this is simply Epic not liking to give Apple a cut of what they consider their income. What surprises me is how easily people are fooled about this.

That's not true at all. This whole thing started when Epic released a direct pay feature in their iOS app that gave a 30% discount for direct pay straight to the users. You can argue whatever you like about the big corps legal departments, but it's inarguable that users using the direct pay feature are paying less right now.

So can they just make anything bought through iOS cost 30% more, but people can buy it from the website (not through iOS) without the Apple markup? I'd think people would quickly learn to buy from the lower cost option.

I think Apple requires IAP be the same price as anywhere else.

That 30% is a cost to Epic and that cost has to be paid by someone.

Just like any other cost, more often than not these costs are just passed on to the customer.

Perhaps, but that is nothing new, now is it? I'm not sure why this case would be special... it's definitely not the scale, numbers or competition, because those are practically the same on plenty of other (non-IT) inter-corporate schemes. Just because you don't hear about them as much doesn't mean they aren't bigger or less relevant.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com