Will they though? For all the players who already had the app they still have access to Epic's payment system meaning they're making 20% more on those transactions. I'm not sure that new user purchases will be > 20% they make in the short term from those existing users.
Part of the calculus must have been that Fortnite was stable enough, especially from a low-level and netcode perspective, that it could do without needing App Store updates to remain cross-play compatible in the medium-term.
While you could technically hide this from them during the review stage, apple can stop any app from functioning on any iOS device connected to the internet by revoking the certificate, if they discover it at a later stage.
Are there noteworthy apps that break this term in the wild?
Any level of a game contains at least some logic like NPC behaviors, event triggering etc. and I'm sure scripting is a standard component of every single game.
Have you heard of Thimbleweed Park? It's basically a VM executing an adventure game language (like the creator's SCUMM VM in the past).
That's on the App Store.
Now if we specifically look at the downloading part, that would mean games on iOS cannot download new levels, which I think is done by a lot of games.
Their goal here being to cover their ass and have a rule, that you already "agreed" to follow, to point at when they want to get rid of your app. Apple's legal tech has always been years ahead of their electronic tech, I'm honestly curious to see if epic's got some sort of counter to apple's usual legal shenanigans.
This is extremely common in games, less so in productivity apps.
So you can have significant portion of your app in say javascript, which you can update OTA.
E.g. react native apps have most of their functionality in js and can use services like code push to update themselves without app store and it doesn't violate Apple ToS.
Plus no new customers on iOS.
Those customers will no longer be able to download Fortnite.
[1] https://9to5mac.com/2019/02/08/four-year-smartphone-upgrades...
However, it seems bubble colour is important.
"Why'd You Push That Button - Why do iPhone users judge people with green text bubbles?"
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/15/18624681/apple-imessage-a...
And honestly I have switched off notifications on WhatsApp (I cannot recommend this highly enough!) so that's the only quick way to reach me. I am sure others do the same.
Android 85%
iOS 15%
The blue bubbles are quite useful because it lets you know if your message is being transmitted encrypted or not (green SMS bubbles mean effectively cleartext).
And as for jailbreaking, the last time I jailbroke an iOS device was many years ago, and it never worked 100%. Every time I rebooted the damn thing it had to be connected to a computer to re-unlock it again. I don't know how the experience is now but it was terrible then. I haven't bought an Apple device since because I like the out-of-the-box ability to install whatever random stuff I want.
This is a technology forum, so speaking of technology... maybe there will just be some radical streaming or delivery innovation, compatible with Mobile Safari today, that could really change the state of at least games and movies on iOS. I wonder why that hasn't happened sooner.
So, I suspect that lots of people are going to be sideloading in the very near future.
e.g. I agree with you.