Apple Disabling 'Sign in with Apple' for Epic Games on September 11
macrumors.com
macrumors.com
Apple can, at will, remove your entire foundation or business, your (their) customers and your existence on iOS is just gone.
Apple is a company that needs to be brought down a peg or two, it's far too 'valuable' in terms of its market worth, and needs a huge kick up the ass as Microsoft once had to show them some respect.
And the EU will levy the world's biggest fine at Apple, I predict north of $5 billion if not $10 billion for abusing their status with this being a notable case.
Certainly, for public opinion, it means you now have to "tow the line", no protesting allowed. If you dare challenge us, we WILL REMOVE YOU.
Horrible company.
After Apple kicked Fortnite from the iOS store, there was an outcry of people who had previously spent money on it through Apple's in-app purchases and now wanted a refund.
Some of those users switched to playing Fortnite on a laptop or Android phone instead, but of course they were still using Sign in with Apple if they had originally created their account and paid for items on iOS. Apple is now locking out those users.
So I predict another wave of upset users, this time it'll be the people that purchased through Apple and were then attempting to play elsewhere.
Meanwhile, Epic now has a very good reason to collect a working email address from every past iOS customer, which they can immediately use to offer the customer a 20% rebate on future purchases if they buy directly through Epic and circumvent the Apple tax.
Plus as an added benefit, Japan has now started an antitrust investigation against Apple after various smaller Japanese game studios (most of them Unreal Engine customers) have come out in support of Epic: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-09-03/apple-app...
And lastly, the combination of pressure on Epic together with the looming iOS14 update have made iOS a lot less attractive for mobile game studios, most of whom traditionally used advertisements to subsidize free players: https://www.consumeracquisition.com/game-over-ios-14-idfa-lo...
I found this quote which I think is quite fitting: "As the folks at Microsoft used to say in the early days of the Xbox, developers are the canaries in the coal mine. When they start dying, the platform is in trouble."
https://venturebeat.com/2020/09/04/the-deanbeat-apple-must-t...
Not just epic but any business really that obtains most of their customer base through sign in with apple.
Losing your entire customer base because of making apple mad is a risk that most businesses will now be unwilling to take.
Interesting point about the looming iOS14 update. Makes you wonder whether Apple will ultimately fall at their privacy sword, similar to how Google fell at its own "Don't do evil" motto. E.g. it's meaningless bravado when not applied to universally to all countries, aka China.
Would Epic be willing to lead the fight against consoles as well (they charge 30%, too)? Oh, right...
The top 100 apps on iOS need to do a 'blackout' and pull their apps from iOS for a week. That will make front page international headlines globally and involve the entire planet. That's the kind of scale necessary.
Legislators from around the world will take notice whereas right now, probably very few know or care.
Don't discount how little the public knows or cares about these kinds of things, most people are busy with their lives they are not paying attention. Few even know or understand the terms of the iOS store let alone what it means.
So a focused PR campaign and 'major action' by a lot of players is what is needed. FB, Wikipedia, Netflix, CNN etc. etc..
It seems to be hurting them more than Apple: Epic Games Asks Court to Allow Fortnite Back on the App Store: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/09/05/epic-injuction-fortnite...
> Meanwhile, Epic now has a very good reason to collect a working email address from every past iOS customer
One of the biggest reason I love using Sign-In With Apple is so that I don't have to give my email to any one else.
All of the other news, like hampering advertisers, is good for users but bad for companies and developers who like to prey on users.
I think it's all a mixed bag, and it might be naive of users to assume Apple is always going to protect them from things that go against their best interests.
Somehow Apple's arduous review process misses privacy exploits like when Facebook or Tiktok or some other random ad company does it. Shoot, they even rolled back some big privacy change in iOS 14 because Facebook complained about it.
I dunno, this will sound stupid, but my primary reason against the "closed ecosystem" is that I can't run a decent Tetris app on my iPhone. It must be the official N3twork licensed Tetris app or noooothing. That sucks.
I could see disabling new signups, but breaking existing users...geeze.
When you restrict your logins to a single company’s OAuth, you’re giving that company incredible power over you- it’s generally not a good thing, except in, perhaps, corporate scenarios where revoking that power unilaterally is a good thing.
I have an infinite supply of email addresses so I can give a unique one to whoever asks and then kill it if it's abused. This way I don't have to tell Apple whenever I logon to Epic or fear that Apple will revoke my access to Epic because of a random adolescent outburst not really befitting of a company of that size.
Fortnite sucks the air out of the room, as much as any #1 media property does to its category.
Besides, making an Unreal Engine game for iOS hardly ever makes sense. Those are always crummy ports.
You could argue Fortnite on mobile devices is itself a crummy port.
Do we need more virtual joystick games? Are we deprived of Battle Royales?
Ask film people whether we’d be better off without Disney, for example.
Listen Epic may be right in some ways, but if Apple just arbitrarily periodically removed the #1 apps from the App Store, I’ve got a surprise for you: it would be healthy for the app ecosystem.
Apple's other actions are just retaliatory: threatening the unreal engine, terminating developer accounts from affiliates, and yanking Apple login. It's those actions that you shouldn't expect.
The precedence Apple wants to set is: break ToS, get kicked off the store. Break ToS and then try to take Apple to court, get kicked off the platform.
It's pretty obvious that Fortnite is just the pawn that Epic used to wage war. This is obvious to Apple too, hence their counterclaim for punitive damages.
Epic Games is free to build their own phone and app store platform. There is nothing stopping them. Other than the risk that people don't want to buy into whatever they build. But Apple had the same risks.
If this is truly a good faith negotiation (and not a stunt) on the part of Epic Games, they need to understand they're just losing the negotiation -- that's all. Business is business. Epic Games is just bad at it.
Whats being asked isn't some massive change to their software. Its freedom for the developer and user to have a choice in payment platforms. As much as Apple tries to obfuscate it, the AppStore is not the kernel, its not the graphics layer, its not the file system, its not something that is needed to run software. The other OS components are already being abstracted away to some extent by cross-platform tooling, and the AppStore is way way easier than those.
On one hand, Apple will never take legal responsibility to audit software on their App Store and certify it free from malware, because doing so will be cost prohibitive and/or impossible. But at the same time, they want to claim its this 'utopia' that will get destroyed if users are allowed the freedom to pick a different store. How about you let us decide that?
Even at much smaller scale, you may need someone more than they need you, and they will negotiate like it - for legal and commercial terms.
Also, terms of service are usually negotiable - presuming you're worth negotiating with. GE has no problem negotiating with Google - you as an individual might have to take what their standard is.
They should have sued and never have done their "pay direct" thing if they wanted to stay operational on Apple platforms during the lawsuit. Apple couldn't retaliate at that point since any termination attempt would be reversed by a court order.
It’s the hazards of building your business on another company’s foundation.
There are millions of companies completely dependent on Apple, Amazon, or another organization. In tech terms, it goes back to affiliate marketing days. In real world terms, it goes back centuries.
No leader should make his company dependent on another company, but it happens all the time.
The only things that are different now is that the company is Apple, and that tech bubble social media outrage is a thing.
This is one of those mindkill kind of lines someone posts in all such threads.
Yes, everything in the world depends on something else. Do you also say this when companies rely on utility companies for their electricity and water? Or must I buy an island and set things up from scratch before I am allowed to start a lemonade stand? Or maybe move to a different planet entirely just to be sure?
An Apple login is handled by Apple. If they don‘t want to do business with you anymore, you‘re lost. They make the rules themself, there is basically not much you can do to appeal those rules directly. I can‘t do anything (well, court, but until then I‘m bankrupt) about it.
Blame the victim.
And that you literally cannot avoid external forces.
This isn't unique to Apple, and it's not arbitrary or capricious on their behalf.
My 3DS supports savestates & backups for games like Animal Crossing that let me maintain multiple towns at the same time, custom emulators that run my old Gameboy cartridge backups that I made, really amazing mods like Project Restoration for Majora's Mask, plus custom themes and easier storage management for things like pictures and songs. By comparison, an unhacked Switch still can't even back up all of its save games to the cloud.
If you don't want us to go after consoles as well, maybe don't tempt us? I'm sympathetic to the argument that being loss leaders makes consoles unique and special and different from a smartphone, but if the general consensus here is that they're exactly the same...
If you're arguing that this case is a slippery slope, try to come up with some consequences farther down the slope that don't sound kind of nice.
Microsoft and Playstation also allow for cross-platform play, and crucially unlike Apple, actually provide a significant amount of services to developers for their cuts, including but not limited to QA services, SDK and hardware support from actual MS/Sony employees, and marketing spend.
Additionally, while MS and Sony require all developers to use their stores or APIs for IAP, they allow developers (at least large ones) to heavily customize those storefronts, and charge significantly less than 30% for the enforced privilege of using their IAP APIs; the exact rates being a matter of negotiation.
Console ecosystems are already open-by-law, based on past cases from the 80s and 90s. You can already publish a game to a Switch or PlayStation without ever going through Nintendo or Sony (so long as you don't steal any copywritten assets to do so). You can even publish your own software, that modifies anyone elses software (again, so long as you don't break copyright to do so).
Their eShop/online stores are not yet open, but the devices main software sources are open by law (things like the BluRay drive on a PS4, or the Cartridge slot on a Switch). This is how things like "unauthorized games" were legally published, as well as software editors/debuggers like GameShark, all existed 100% legally as far back as the 90's.
Apple is actually attempting to overturn precedent here, they're trying to claim their TOS is somehow more legally binding than everyone elses is, and trying to reverse battles already fought and lost by Atari / Nintendo / Sega, because companies didn't have easy way to retroactively punish users for fair use back then, like Apple can and does do today.
I'm not convinced that the console ecosystem would be destroyed if you forced them all to open up. Quite the contrary: I'd happily invest in consoles if I could build it myself with open hardware.
Mobile phones are how many individuals interface with the rest of the world.
Not to mention your case gets worse when there are way less restrictions on releasing games on Xbox/PlayStation/Switch than on iOS.
In other words, Xbox is already more open than iOS. I believe they opened it up with the Xbox 360 around 2007. https://www.xbox.com/en-US/developers#developerprograms
Consoles should also be forced to open up though, and there's no reason why that would "destroy the console ecosystem". They might have to raise the prices of the consoles, but everyone has to do it so it won't matter, and the consoles can also either be financed or monthly fees for online play can be increased.
Consoles opening up would be a good thing. I'm not sure why you say it would destroy their ecosystem.
How is this true? Consoles predate app stores by many decades.
This is whataboutism for sure.
It moves the discussion to a less constructive, more re-hashed place.
Consoles are different because they're not sold as general purpose computing devices and do not have the market penetration size that iOS does.
There is a great argument for allowing all consumers to install whatever software they want on all devices they purchased - including consoles - by law. I'd like to see this - for over a decade, a lot of tech communities have pushed for this - but this isn't the conversation we're having today.
I don't believe any of those vendors take anything close to 30% of in-game revenue. And the reason is they compete with each other, quite vigorously, for the same set of users looking for the same set of products (consoles and games).
> or classify iOS as somehow different...
Right, because Apple is leveraging their dominance of an external market (high end mobile phones) to control pricing in the game market that "should" be more akin to consoles. But it demonstrably isn't. And that is a problem.
If you want to argue here, the proper argument is that iOS isn't a monopoly (and that Google charges similar fees). But don't argue that it's the same as a console, that just doesn't make sense.
A console is designed for a specific task (playing games and similar software), the market is somewhat competitive and you are free to buy a PC/Mac/Linux and get 99% of the functionality (minus a few exclusive titles). In fact consoles nowadays are just PCs running a custom build of a general-purpose OS.
The mobile market is different. There are only 2 dominant players (Apple and Google), they both have similar anti-competitive restrictions (side-loading on Android is a non-starter given the various security warnings, and even then the lack of officially-supported root access on Android means there are things official Google software can do that you can't do without resorting to exploits, plus Android requires you to accept Google's terms & privacy policy which does not comply with the GDPR). There are no other players; the open-source alternatives such as Pinephone are not viable alternatives as they cut you off from the vast majority of apps out there. Let's take a period-correct example, are there any Covid contact-tracing clients available for platforms besides iOS and Android?
isn't the expression toe the line? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toe_the_line#Misspelling_as_%2...
No company owning a big general computing ecosystem should have this much disproportionate power.
I am glad that at least on a personal level I decided to diversify on my computing devices and just use their laptops now.
What needs to happen is that Apple and the App Store become separate companies, and other companies are also allowed to sell apps on iOS devices. Restrictive walled gardens like this need to be banned.
If it was a real fine, and not just wild speculation, it would definitely impact on their financials.
Well, yes. Thing is, Epic essentially started a war. Had they went and sued Apple... that's normal. They could have also tried this in the EU where they would likely garner some governmental help.
But the decided to violate license agreements, created smear PR campaigns and so on. It is unsurprising that Apple is hitting back.
Even if Epic wins, I'm not sure the public is better served by a store from a company that punches so low. Using they customers as fodder is not ok.
I would say that applies to apple lot more than epic , they have hurt their customers .
Apple could also have taken epic to the courts as well and got their way if it was fair. Remember apple did the actual ban and is hurting the users now .
I didn't sign up for coke's anti-union movements in south america because I like fizzy sugar water.
Replace software with retail in your example, it doesn't sound so abnormal
"Walmart can, at will, remove your entire line of potato chips from your (their) customers and your existance in their stores is just gone."
The store analogy also has very limited switching costs, for example if Walmart stops selling brand X of potato chips, it's inconvenient but not impractical to go out of one's way to buy them at Target. It would be different if buying potato chips at Target would involve throwing out everything one has bought at Walmart and buying the same Target-equivalent merchandise (ie. switching from iPhone to Android, one would need to buy equivalent apps).
What a ridiculous thing to say.
1) You make it seem like Apple are some capricious God like entity that any moment will completely change the underlying terms and conditions you agreed to when running your business in iOS. Its simply not true. If you remove this one situation with Epic its literally never happened.
2) Consumer trust in Apple flows onto any company that is on the iOS platform. You expect Apple to give this away for free? It provides immeasurable benefit to most businesses insofar that a consumer is far more likely to purchase goods or services knowing that Apple have 'vetted' you simply by being on the iOS platform. By Apple being so strict and stringent on App Store requirements you know as a consumer they aren't doing things in the interest of the vendors which in turn benefits legitimate vendors.
3) Epic flagrantly violated the terms they had previously agreed to simply because they don't agree to the 30% cut. That style of negotiation is absolutely atrocious and Epic should be the ones being punished not Apple. If they felt so strongly about Apple's anti-trust liabilities they could have formed an alliance with other businesses and lobbied governments globally without breaking existing T&Cs. They probably would have won too and been able to get the cut Apple take to the same level that it costs Apple to run (say 15%). Instead they are trying to bully Apple into doing something that benefits Epic and Epic alone.
Epic are 100% in the wrong here.
Note I am neither an Epic nor Apple user.
They do it all the time. The terms are vague and they can interpret them, or change their mind at will. This happens daily in small cases, and more so in bigger one's were Apple, out of the blue, demands a 30% cut of some adjacent business.
Apple is in this for profit - if they can adjust the rules within legality for more money - the will.
Epic probably thinks that some conditions are illegal, and therefore void. But that would also mean that Apple broke the contract with Epic when they removed the app from the store.
Apple has removed apps from the App Store and blocked apps from being published or updated MANY times.
Inform yourself.
And they would get quite a few allies then. See an earlier proclamation and fight by Spotify: https://timetoplayfair.com/timeline/
For Epic, though, only 12% of their revenue comes from IOS, so they're willing to dump Apple.
Just like they ended the Microsoft OS monopoly abuses. Dream on.
Twitter and Facebook entirely eradicated based around their API's.
In Apple's response to Epic, they make the case there is absolutely no way to define them as a monopoly, since even just for Fortnite, there are a half dozen competing platforms of which they note, the App Store isn't even the biggest one.
then a few years later Apple will win the appeal and get every penny of it back due to Commission's overstretch
Apple only has ~25% market share in the EU. Their "status" is as the minority player in the market. It's questionable whether this is high enough to violate EU antitrust laws, which have usually required at least 40% to show market dominance.
Isn't that how all private companies work? If you walk into a mom-and-pop corner shop with no "shoes or shirt" you'll be removed as well—whether or not you think it's some kind of righteous protest.
When I worked in retail and scouted prices at the completion they would ask me to leave the store.
I don't really care about Epic's stake in the matter; they are clearly making plenty of money. A smaller company with a different idea that treads the line with their in-app-purchases would be in a tough place.
Even if they do get fined this amount, it would have been worth it for them to abuse their position with the developers.
I feel like this was posted to serve the narrative Epic is trying to dispense. I’m on the other side of the fence and I was an Epic fan until they started to pull this crap.
So a couple of things here, if you violate a contract with a company what do you expect the outcome to be? They knew exactly what they were doing, implemented a payment system and got the boot. If they didn’t want to get the boot they could’ve just not.
Isn't this why people pay the Apple tax? To have them protect you (their users) from 'bad apples'? Everyone liked their over bearing approach to their eco-system until it directly affected them, and now it's too much? Have your cake and eat it too?
Also, businesses generally don't have to do business with other businesses that are suing them.
Meanwhile Apple is actually innovating and producing useful things.
Also, there seems to be an odd concentrated anti-Apple effort going on right now. Basecamp was on it recently when they immediately didn’t get what they wanted, and I believe I’ve seen similar messages from other companies in the same vein. I wish I could get a refund my hey.com account, but too late I guess.
Basecamp, incidentally, seems to be another company that did great things in the past, but is now having trouble finding new innovations. Hey.com is a web-only email client that costs 100 bucks per year. This is hardly worth the posturing they’re putting out.
Not soon... Apple is loved by a good majority of EU citizens, and while that's the case, the EU won't fine them. Fines are for 'evil corporations' as deemed by a voter...
Like any breach of contract, it should be dealt appropriately.
Apple also has noncompetes in its employee contracts, even though such provisions are illegal in CA. Should we prevent Apple employees from moving to Apple competitors in violation of those illegal non-compete provisions?
The entire purpose of government is to serve us, and we should change the rules if we think that a 30% money grab of all developer's income is unethical.
Its the same reason we support Net Neutrality. We instituted (or tried to anyway) controls at the government level to prevent ISPs from abusing their position.
Yes Epic is. They willingly violated their TOS to the point of even communicating that they were going to violate their TOS. Surprise, surprise if you break the rules don't be shocked when they are enforced. They also are attempting to user their Engine and customer base (against their will) to fight a battle that they don't want to be a part of.
This isn't Apple just erasing a company because they felt like it, and Apple isn't the antagonizing party at all. Don't coflate the necessary need to protest against actual issues like corrupt governments versus not getting your video game the way you like it. It weakens the word and idea of actual protest.
Apple may be allowed to do everything they’re doing by contract and more.
I’m a big Apple fan but they are just... crazy on this. They seem to be going way too far and just being outright spiteful. Far far more than Apple usually does. And they’re scaring a big chunk of their developer base in the process.
I don’t know what they’re thinking, but I think they’re heading towards a Pyrrhic victory at best.
As a user, I desire a curated platform.
As a developer, I want to have access to all the users of that platform by publishing on just one store.
> Apple is a company that needs to be brought down a peg or two
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tall_poppy_syndrome
> it's far too 'valuable' in terms of its market worth
Because many consumers agree with how Apple does things.
Why is that simple fact so offensive for some of you?
Nobody is being forced to buy Apple products or develop for them, they choose to.
Microsoft and Google, on the other hand, are much much harder to avoid even if I don't choose to directly buy any of their products.
But if you Apple decide that they don't like you anymore, they'll not only cut you off the App Store, they'll also bury all (or a subset of) your users.
Apple is starting to act more and more like a bully.
[1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#sig...
If Apple wanted to show some goodwill towards the end users who were caught up in this mess they'd continue to allow them to log in or provide a migration path.
I wonder if this will be used against Apple in the future since it's clearly hurting people of they lose access to their game, progress and purchases.
If Epic succeeds in breaking that, they’ll lose a lot more than 30% of the 20 ish millions a month that Epic is currently losing on this ordeal.
Apple does act like a petty child, and a rather obnoxious one at that. They are the worst kind of company, one that considers it is doing you a favour by allowing you to be their customer.
Sent from my iPhone.
From the original article: Customers will be able to "update to a standard email address and password" and, even after the deadline to do that, "those who did not transition from Sign in with Apple may be able to contact Epic Games to have their accounts recovered manually."
Of course, retaliation is expected, but Apple has been so inconsistent in their application of the rules that every decision they've ever made is going to be called into question.
And you can be sure if there is even a hint at favouritism or revelations they've given certain partners special deals (that perhaps Epic wasn't allowed but Amazon was), then they are well and truly fucked.
The EU is not going to mess around. They are going to question every single decision Apple has made, and will make a substantial report into their conduct especially the effects on EU business and the economy. If the EU announces they are investigating you, you should be very, very afraid, they do NOT mess around and will absolutely be at the least issuing a rather substantial financial penalty and changes you will be forced to make within the business (and the OS).
Just look at what they've done to Google in the past few years, this is going to be no different.
I expect huge changes are coming for Apple in 2021 and I think we'll all be better off for it.
So sure, take the actions/steps you want, but be prepared to really defend them, and hope you actually have a case that is applied equally and fairly to all.
Rumor is, Amazon was cut a deal and others have had a deal so the rules don't seem applied in a fair way. Amazon isn't forced to use Apple Pay for example. (which i think is the part specific with this specific case)
Epic could have brought on this lawsuit while still complying with the App Store rules, in fact the judge suggested they do that so their users aren't impacted. They wouldn't be getting kicked off right now and the Sign-in with Apple button wouldn't be getting disabled. They chose to break the app store rules, which they did agreed to, AND they also decided to sue Apple.
They could revert their app right now and Apple would restore their account and they could still continue their lawsuit. Epic is just weaponizing their user base in their fight against Apple.
Epic is alleging that Apple is breaking the law. That's the whole point of the antitrust lawsuit, to decide if they are or are not.
> Epic could have brought on this lawsuit while still complying with the App Store rules
No they could not. They needed standing to sue. "Apple is doing what the contract says and we don't like it" does not establish standing. Epic needed to act as though the contract was illegal, suffer some harm, and then they have standing to sue. That's exactly what happened.
You are correct that they could revert their changes and comply for the time being and Apple seems amenable to that.
In fact, the judge did not suggest they do so because absent economic harm Epic had no standing to sue until Apple retaliated. The judge simply pointed out that they couldn't provide injunctive relief forcing Apple to allow Epic to have its own store before the case was decided on the merits. (Judges rarely grant injunctive relief to change the status quo, especially in commercial cases.)
You have no way of knowing this and frankly I doubt it. And I'm not sure that it wouldn't weaken their legal position.
They will suffer reputation damage anyway, but they at least stand a chance of convincing some of their customers that they have a good reason for taking these actions.
I'd be more ok with Apple not allowing new accounts, but existing accounts should not be removed from people without them agreeing to a transition process to a non sso, local epic account.
> they likely had to break the illegal rule for standing to sue.
I'm not sure if this was ever true, but it's quite clear at this point that they can make their app comply with App Store policies and and continue their lawsuit at this point.
Sorry I don't know where you got this idea but that's now how the legal system works.
Do feel free to quote a written ruling from the judge if you think I am off base. A binding ruling on standing which Apple has had the chance to appeal to the Supreme Court.
You do know the trial judge isn't even the final judge that would decide on an issue of standing, correct? Not only is your claim implausible, but a lower court judge doesn't have the final say on standing even if your claim was true.
Epic intentionally broke the rules. Maybe Apple's actions are right, maybe wrong. But don't pretend Apple just out-of-the-blue decided to do this to Epic for no reason.
Epic caused their own pain here, sure but What other way can we actually get a semi open platform that we're not being taxed on? Why can't we as users and developers have options on iOS? I think that if an operating system allows third party apps they should be _legally_ required to allow other app stores, sideloading of programs without penalty for doing so, or both. That goes for any platform, developed at any time by anyone.
I have been completely at a loss for anyone defending Apple while hoping that Epic loses their fight. The first makes sense but the second is absolutely baffling.
As much as we deny it, companies only tend to get that big through anti-consumer behaviour, walled gardens, vendor lock-in, etc.
When your life's purpose revolves around the absolute power your dream requires, of course you will defend it. The fact that allowing other companies to behave this way makes it harder for you to do well is irrelevant, because you need that power for when you're in their place.
Of course the truth is that smart contracts are close to useless without human intervention (see: the oracle problem), their inability to be changed is more problematic than useful because humans make mistakes writing them or change their mind later or are forced by law to change it, and Apple's app store system is already riddled with exceptions for entities that even Apple can't deny too many wishes (see: exceptions for Amazon) and weird constructs that draw artificial, blurred and very much human-defined lines in order to fix contradicting or nonsensical rules (see: the so-called "reader" app exceptions). But all of this is easily ignored when necessary to construct a seemingly contradiction-free world view and picking a "side". Also a very human imperfection...
As an Apple user, the whole point here is that it's not an open system.
I just can't get riled up over a developer not following the rules of a platform. I use Apple because the Apple ecosystem is valuable to me - the store, the SSO, the Apple ID, the UI/UX, the hardware - all of it. I don't care about Epic or any other developer that doesn't want to play nice with that ecosystem. Those kinds of developers don't have any value to me.
It's not that simple. Right now when I look at the apps on my phone, I have a very, very high confidence that they are not malware. It's not 100% though - right? Because I have to trust some entity. I choose to trust Apple. If apple opens up side loading of apps, I have _much less_ confidence that when I look at my phone, the apps are not malware.
Unless I'm enrolling in an MDM, I implicitly trust everything on my device.
> This would all go away if Apple simply made it a setting to allow other IPAs
Again I think you're missing the point. Do you know how _awesome_ it is as a user that Apple manages my payment method and paying for random apps, and random subscriptions is managed by my Apple ID? I don't have to hunt down 'unsubscribe' emails, or call any phone numbers, or any of that garbage - I go into the control panel and click a button and now I'm no longer paying for that subscription. Allowing that stuff to happen outside of Apple would be a huge _negative_ for me.
> Keep the garden if you want it. Don't enable outside installs.
The wall around the garden is important. Sure, I could get my leg amputated in the street by a doctor with tools from my garage - but I'd rather have that done in a hospital where ingress and egress are more controlled and contamination is less likely.
> The difference here is Apple doesn't give you a choice.
Maybe the difference here is I made my choice already - I picked Apple. I don't want to have to think about every little feature and whether or not it increase my exposure to risk. If you value all that other stuff, go play in the Android world. I don't, so I don't even think about it until these threads come up.
> Even if the developer does all the legwork to build a payment system (for example, they have a web app as well) and market the app on their own, they have to give Apple their cut. You don't get a choice and neither does the developer.
You're conveniently omitting a huge feature of having Apple manage all of that stuff: _Apple manages all of that stuff_, not Epic or the kid that implements the next subscription-based flappy bird.
I am using Android as I've been for the last couple of years for this hackability, but i rely more on F-Droid than Play Store.
I understand both Apples and Epics point of view, standard consumer would probably be hurt by Epic getting their way while HN crowd would benefit (possibly short term only) from Epic getting their way.
One thing to keep in mind is that there's a reason why Apple is doing this, and it rhymes well with what every single person i know says about the iPhone. It's simple, it just works, you know how to use it, It's convenient. All these things sound like things one can only achieve in a walled garden.
Apple does what's best for their shareholders, and what's best for their shareholders is if people stay happy with their iPhones and keep purchasing them. I'll stick to Android and all the associated spyware until there's a proper opensource alternative for day2day use and some decent music streaming service available.
If it makes you feel any better, I have never, ever, felt "locked down" in the Apple ecosystem. We must live very different lives because I never think about my phone - I think about messaging people, sending emails, looking something up on the web, getting directions, etc. Things I like and enjoy using are there and amazing. I don't have to worry about scummy devs like Epic, or side-loading malware because it's cool, or jailbreaking so I can put drop shadows on random things. If you need those features you should have picked a device that supported those features. I don't, so I don't care about things like that because they bring me no value.
Managing your devices and apps is expensive in terms of time and attention costs. It's not worth it to me.
> Also as a developer deploying anything Apple-related is a pain.
I would challenge this or at least dismiss this as an opinion - I have apps in both the iOS and Android stores and deploying on iOS is a breeze compared to Android.
Do you think that the Apple ecosystem could get better? Surely, there are improvements that would be a net positive for you?
Now, what if what Epic is doing results in an improvement in the Apple ecosystem?
Ultimately, you can only say that this case has no value to you if you can reason that there is no way that it will make things better for you, and that's a very tough thing to prove without a crystal ball :)
Still, you certainly don't have to put all that much thought into this. At the end of the day, there are far more important things in life.
You're inverting the relationship. These things have value because I don't have to care about side loading garbage IPAs or devs injecting malware, etc. etc. I don't care about sone random developer's "improvements". Just give me what I paid for and that's all I care about.
Hint: Part of what I pay for is: "play nice with apple, because that's what I expect."
The user experience of installing from their app store and using their sign in method is so much better than the experience of installing from the web and signing in via other methods. It frustrates me that the entire industry failed to create a suitable sign-in option and Apple felt they had to step in to create something with good UX while respecting users' privacy.
I'd love for the iOS ecosystem to open up more, but I also know it would be exploited easily and create an industry-wide race-to-the-bottom for UX and privacy.
You won't expect the single-parent-of-two type of developer to even hope of touching Apple. That sort of developer has no alternative but to keep paying the Apple 'tax'. It's no different than general purpose extortion.
Epic tried to get Apple to allow a whole new store on their platform AND allow Epic to do all its own CC processing. Apple said no and Epic flipped a switch to offer CC processing for Fortnite and so Apple removed the app and disabled the account. Part of that account access included the Sign in with Apple and so that is going away as well.
Epic isn't fighting for the little guy, they wanted their own store where they would take their own percentage of sales.
Lastly I'll just say that while 30% might be too high I think a lot of people are overlooking the value that the App Store and the iOS platform as whole provides. I swear all of the comments about "I could host it myself and use stripe and pay way less" just reeks of "...you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem..."
So many people say "oh, Epic is not the underdog. They are a huge corporation themselves. They do not deserve my sympathy." As if they don't support this case, but would have supported it if it was brought by a small independent developer. As if it is morally wrong to support the case because it has been filed by a big company.
But guess what, only a multi-billion dollar corporation who is willing to spend north of a billion dollar on legal costs can even toy with the idea of suing Apple and winning. Anything smaller, they will be out of business and everyone will be polishing their resumes and studying leetcode before the first snowfall. There will never ever be a serious legal battle against Apple by a small independent mom-and-pop owned warm fuzzy feelings business. Because they just go bankrupt. Many have perished under App Store rules (you remember the case of the curated app review app from a couple of weeks ago?) and many more will perish.
But if some company, any company at all, even if it is Blackwater, wins this suit, then there is a precedant. Then there is a path forward. Then, even if it comes to a lawsuit, with the precedent, it may only takes a couple million dollars for the ISV to fight it in court, instead of a couple billion dollars. Then there may be alternative app stores, so instead of just going out of business if an Apple reviewer decides they don't like you app, you can move your app to the alternatives, even if they are run by devil incarnates.
Epic may not care about the little guy, but if they win the fight they are fighting, the little guys will benefit immensely.
A billion dollar company is completely necessary to tackle Apple. This stuff is important, and advocates for user-freedom and device ownership can't afford to put every company that's criticizing Apple through a purity test to make sure that they've never done anything anti-consumer themselves.
Think back to Google vs Oracle. You don't need to like a company overall to agree with them in one specific lawsuit.
Except for the part where hosting my own website/store and using Fastspring for processing Mac app sales was actually less of a PITA than dealing with the Mac App Store with its signing, certificates, shitty first version of cert management, et. al. And it was far less expense and hassle than 30% of sales. Hosting one's own iOS app web store probably wouldn't be a whole lot more trouble.
So in this comparison, doing it myself is Dropbox. Going the Apple Store route is wiring together FTP with SVN, getting curlftpfs working,...and paying extra for the privilege.
Given all this, Epic's actions represent at least an attempt to reign is some of Apple's power. I think that's why people are siding with Epic - because there is no one else doing anything about the walled gardens increasingly going up in modern computing.
What's really scary is what might happen if Apple wins these lawsuits. With legal precedent set, unless there's legislative action to pass new law, it's unlikely anyone will want to challenge Apple or Google's App Store terms in the future.
In a market economy, one thing you can generally count on is that nobody is going to do a thing because it is what's best for you. Anything an entity does is generally going to be self-interested. If you're going to dismiss and discount positive actions based on this observation, you're never going to have anything good to say about anything a company does, ever.
Nobody is fighting for the little guy, but this is still advantageous for the consumer. Apple is even fighting with Facebook, since you are forbidden to disclose the 30% cut with consumers.
A little guy would not have the resources to fight off the most valuable corporation in the world. Apple could spend hundreds of millions in legal fees and it would be a rounding error on their financials. Apple could literally hire every lawyer in the US and the EU, pay them their normal rates, and treat the entire expense as an immaterial item on their annual financials.
There are few companies in the world with the resources to fight Apple, and fewer still with the willingness (or reason) to do so.
Competing stores on a platform means that store vendors have to compete on price and/or service since they can't rely on exclusive access to the platform to force anyone who wants to reach the platform into their store. So, fighting for their own store on the platform (especially since succeeding forces the platform open to other stores, as well) is fighting for the little guy. It may not be the goal, but it's the ultimate effect.
The courts aren't going to decide this case based on who is fighting for "the little guy" but whether the anti-competitive actions taken by Apple constitute a violation of civil or corporate law.
> I'm honestly surprised so many HN readers are siding with Epic
I'm not. If my only use case for an Apple device was to develop commercial software for Apple devices then I'd rather quit my job, go get a law degree and join Epic's legal team for no salary just to stick it to Apple.
But I am a consumer that owns apple devices and I derive value from their model of the universe and don't see how Epic's alternative universe where they charge a lower fee with a different mechanism would improve anything, either as a developer or user.
There are much more concrete things they could argue in court are harmful to consumers, like the fact that supporting MacOS and iOS targets costs enormous amounts of money compared to Windows and Linux due to the lack of (TOS compliant) solutions for targeting and testing for Apple's operating systems. But that wouldn't give Epic a win scenario that would allow them to bypass parental controls for microtransactions in a children's game.
A mall owner can't dictate how it's residents receive money.* Nor would it be wise of them to take a share of their commercial resident's sales.*
I'm not arguing on legality. I'm arguing based on social norms (not ethics either).
Apple is extreme social behavior of a corporation. There are multiple situations where Apple copied something another app developer made.
I doubt Epic will win but...it may open up the conversation and maybe finally encourage other developers to push back on Apple, so that a more socially acceptable structure is within the App Store (and it's ecosystem).
If this doesn't cause Apple to reform, the next escalation is clearly inciting a frenzy to push the Govt to execute judgement with the antitrust laws. Even if they're outdated, the case is clear. Apple hasn't just been a bad actor once or twice but numerous instances. If Epic does this with their current case, I'm uncertain that they'll achieve their desired outcome because their limited situation doesn't seem as clear cut.
* - If the contract says this...it's still not socially fair. Land is vast...the phone ecosystem is not. Which means a mall owner will meet a lot of competition to push them to either change or they'll go out of business due to undue hardship put on the commercial tenants.
The value would be obvious if an alternative was available to contrast with.
That's the point. This is also what the little guys want. Epic isn't fighting for the little guy, but they are fighting for terms that are mutually beneficial for both Epic and the little guy.
For the devs who support Epic in the lawsuit, it's never directly been about the 30% cut. It's about this article, right here -- that Apple requires you to support a sign-in system that they can just turn off whenever they want, that if you get into a legal battle with Apple they can just revoke your developer certificates, that you're not allowed to mention even inside your app that alternative payment methods exist. It's about a company that purposefully gimps their browser and disallows competing engines, keeping webapps at a perpetual disadvantage to native apps. It's about the fact that if I buy an iPhone, I don't get to decide what code runs on it.
People are treating this like a popularity contest, bringing up points like, "Epic is selfishly motivated." Well, of course. Both Apple and Epic are selfishly motivated, neither company cares about you. But it just so happens that in this case, the stuff Epic wants is also the stuff I want. I want the ability to run my own code on my own device I bought without asking anyone else's permission to do so. I really don't care about Epic's motivations.
I understand why people disagree with me, I understand why people like Apple's walled garden, and I understand why people think that the average consumer might be too stupid to actually own their own hardware and make their own decisions. I also understand why some people think that antitrust is too heavy of a hammer, and that there are other ways to address the problem of iPhone lock-in for consumers. Heck, I even understand why some people think the monopoly is good, because it forces companies to support iPhone regardless of Apple's terms, which opens some doors to increase user privacy.
I disagree with those people, but I understand them. I don't think that they all just completely irrationally hate Epic.
So is it really impossible for you to understand why someone would want the ability to control what code runs on their own device they bought? Do you genuinely believe that all boils down to anti-Apple sentiment? You can't understand the other viewpoint at all?
> I swear all of the comments about "I could host it myself and use stripe and pay way less" just reeks of "...you can already build such a system yourself [...]"
To flip this around, I feel the same way about comments I read that are saying, "Epic should just make their own smartphone or put together a webapp if they don't want to be on the store. The market will solve this." Building a store and figuring out hosting is pretty objectively easier than building a new smartphone competitor.
Apple isn't my biggest worry when I think about consumer lock-in and anti-competitive practices (hello Amazon Kindle/Audible), but there is some pretty obvious user lock-in for iPhones, and Apple is pretty obviously pushing to create more of them. There's a reason why the Apple credit card only works with iPhone, and there's a reason why Apple wants everyone to sign into 3rd-party services with Apple accounts.
So when someone says, "if it was possible to build a better phone ecosysytem, someone would have done it", I feel like they're drastically oversimplifying the technical, social, and market barriers to actually competing in a smartphone market.
Respectfully, it feels like you don't. For example:
> I understand why people think that the average consumer might be too stupid to actually own their own hardware and make their own decisions.
It's not about stupidity. I like the fact that my 94-year-old grandmother (who isn't stupid, by the way) doesn't have to worry about accidentally downloading malware from the App Store on her iOS devices, and the fact that she can't be phished into side-loading the same. As long as side loading is a thing, malicious actors will trick some users into side loading malware.
My grandmother has never been such an autonomous computer user as the day she got an iOS device. It's absolutely astonishing how much more agency she has as a computer user with iOS, compared to Windows and Android. She manages the device almost entirely by herself (vs. Windows/Android where a family member spent a few hours per month fixing things). Her iOS device is an actual "personal" computer, one on which she, not another family member, gets to make the decisions about which software to run.
So here's the inconvenient fact for your argument: In a very real sense, my grandmother (who, I claim, is much more representative of an average user than you or I, here on Hacker News) is making more of her own decisions with more autonomy than she ever did on Windows or Android. And that new agency is enabled because of Apple's policies.
> So is it really impossible for you to understand why someone would want the ability to control what code runs on their own device they bought? Do you genuinely believe that all boils down to anti-Apple sentiment? You can't understand the other viewpoint at all?
It's not hard to understand why someone wants more control. It is, however, very hard for me to understand why you don't use the mobile operating system that already works the way you claim to want it to.
Genuine question: Apple makes no secret of the fact that they exert a large degree of control over the ecosystem, and they have a generous return policy. If you don't hate Apple, why don't you just buy an Android device and allow those of us who like iOS the way it is to live in peace? Why are you forcing your desires on us?
> the stuff Epic wants is also the stuff I want
> but they are fighting for terms that are mutually beneficial for both Epic and the little guy.
Epic is not fighting for mutually-beneficial terms. You can already side load on Android yet Epic is suing Google right alongside Apple. Epic doesn't want you to side load your own code--they want you to pay for someone else's code through Epic's store without paying a cut to Apple. That's it.
Speaking mutually-beneficial: Sign-in with Apple, a "gimped" browser, developer restrictions, forcing IAP to go through Apple. Yes, those all all very clearly benefit Apple. But they also benefit users.
It would be nice if app developers could offer their own payment platform. But what happens when a user (deservedly) asks for a refund? Apple has to say "sorry bud, we didn't process the payment, you're out of luck for using the 3rd-party IAP". So users stop trusting the platform, which hurts other developers. Remember when you stopped trusting that a product on amazon.com was actually sold by Amazon? Did that make you more or less likely to spend money on amazon.com?
Shutting down "sign in" options shows that internally, Apple is looking for a way to hurt Epic in a manner that hurts the most but they are coming up short. Although iOS accounts for over one-thirds of Fortnite's 360million users, Epic has already made the brave decision to let that portion of revenue go and nothing Apple does will hurt them into begging Apple to let them back into their walled garden.
I'm not saying Apple's in the right here, but people keep construing it as Apple "looking for way[s] to hurt Epic" and I don't think that's quite what's going on. Epic performed a significant breach of the App Store terms in a way never tried before, and the repercussions (which are detailed in those terms!) are being enforced on a scale never seen before. But it's not like Apple's execs are scouring, looking for minute and petty ways to hurt Epic. They're just going to let the lawsuit run its course, and in the meantime enforce the terms of the agreement (willingly broken by Epic) to the fullest capacity.
Developers using Unreal Engine certainly do not sign their app with Epic's credentials.
Or when I put in the contract tips go straight to the business. You don't put your tips in at the end of the night, Boom! Fired!
You can't expect me to keep you employed if you don't follow the contract.
Hell I've even had some of them come up to me and say those terms are illegal but I put in the contract that you can't complain about the conract, so... Boom! Fired! They knew they would be so why are they even complaining, idiots?
We already had a single Nintendo Switch that they both shared, so we let them spend the money they saved to split the cost & buy a second Switch lite so that they can both still play together. After getting used to haptic joystick controls, they much prefer them to touch controls.
They both now say "I hate Apple". They didn't get that from me: I think both companies are engaged in an arms race of their own self interest, and have explained the issue to my kids as being about both companies wanting to make money. Something like this:
"Apple created a store and wants people who sell items in the store to share money from their sales, which is the way stores generally work. Epic thinks that Apple & Google take way too much of that money and Epic wants to keep more of that money, though they are willing to let users get some saving too."
They both still hate Apple now, and when my daughter did pick up her iPad for the first time in days, she was afraid to spend her money on a different game she wanted because she thought Apple might take it away. (She's 7... she also kicks my --s in Fortnite. I'm smart, and decades of practice mean I pickup videogames fast enough to be above average in any new game. She is better & smarter than me in every way. I work in data science, and I'm half convinced that if I taught her the basics of SQL, python, R and a few presentation-layer reporting technologies, she could do my job in an hour of her free time each day. But, you know, child labor laws.)
This is a curious decision considering that the primary distinction between the part of the temporary restraining order the court granted (against Apple interfering with unreal engine) and the part the court denied (against Apple interfering with fortnite) was that the court thought that Epic had demonstrated irreparable harm with respect to the former and not the latter.
I don't get it.
(Legalities note: A temporary restraining order is basically a "preliminary preliminary injunction", the same idea, but granted earlier and only lasts until the court rules on the actual preliminary injunction)
Apple is moving the situation farther from the status quo... which strikes me as a very bad legal strategy when the ruling for them was based on the idea that maintaining the status quo did not cause irreparable harm.
I expect the judge is going to have some serious questions about whether this action is in response to them violating the terms of service (status quo as I believe the judge is interpreting the phrase), or if it's about retaliating against the lawsuit [1]. Novel punitive actions using services that aren't directly related don't strike me as business as usual.
[1] Unless the court rules in some way that makes the whole question moot. We shouldn't read too much into how the court ruled on the TRO.
It's very similar, seems like a reasonable next move. We can agree that there is a risk of being found retaliatory and it might not be the greatest strategic move as found in court 5 years later, but the risk is worthwhile.
I found it extremely convenient especially from a privacy perspective (your name and email are hidden) but the risk I'll lose access to my accounts is too much.
The risk/reward cuts both ways. If a developer starts putting malware/whatever in their apps and Apple nukes their access to "Sign On With Apple" then it protects me as a user, and I value that.
If Facebook blocks your developer account (Had this happen to my company once) your users can no longer sign in - though are they really your users at that point, or are they (Facebook/Google/Apple/etc...)
First off, Epic's whole lawsuit is that parts of Apple's ToS are illegal, and thus Apple has no grounds to enforce it as they did. Secondly, the kind of retaliation Apple has attempted to do here very much resembles anti-consumer monopolistic behavior. Apple is using their position in one market (common sign in, developer tools, hardware) to enforce their position in another (app store). Classic no-no.
Obviously the final determination on these points will be made by the courts. In the meantime, if Apple isn't an anti-consumer monopoly, they sure are walking, talking and quacking like one.
Apps need social login, disabling it at all is out of the question. Implementing any social login means implement login with Apple ID (and following desing guidelines), or app will not pass review.
By default, login with Apple gives a bogus email not connected to anything, so there's no way to send there a random password "just in case Apple want to kick us out". And app cannot ask for real email just in case, because it will not pass the review.
Check and mate.
If you simply decide to break the terms of your contract with them, yes, they will kick you out. But this is not 'in case Apple wants'. It's because the developer wants to break contract.
Apple and Google have banned applications about COVID since the world was littered with apps and scams trying profit from the COVID pandemic.
The author is making a news app that's promoting COVID articles and content, so it got instant banned on sight. That's super clear cut and straightforward even though he doesn't like that.
You really shouldn't call that censorship. You're making a disservice to countries who experience real censorship, where people risk their life for saying innocent things.
If you abuse a service, and they cut you off, you don't get to cry about them enforcing their rules.
Hurts the consumer too. People will be locked out of their Epic accounts.
> They enforce their TOS randomly and this will happen to smaller companies too.
If their ToS is randomly enforced, which other App/Company violated the same terms as Epic which Apple chose to not enforce? I can't imagine there'll ever be a single case where a remote activated violation to sneak pass App Review would ever be allowed to remain on the App Store once identified.
[1] https://www.apple.com/ios/app-store/principles-practices/#:~...
Remote activation is an irrelevant detail. Apps routinely active features remotely. It's the underlying violation that matters, not how it was enabled. That's just PR.
Epic's own customers are blaming Epic for this snafu. It's hard to see Apple as the bad guy when Epic is the one who broke the rules first. Almost every gamer isn't going to be sympathetic to a player who broke the rules and got banned.
This just shows how Apple has a "deity" like status in the community, fanboys here are willing to die defending Apple and their arbitrary "rules".
Just dare to imagine if tomorrow Microsoft came out and said Steam broke ToS and starting September 11 all accounts signed-up over outlook.com will be disabled.
There would be riots on the streets and buildings burning, Nadella would give a resignation within a week.
Yet for Apple, the rules don't apply (ironically). Tim Cook blatantly commits perjury in front of Congress and no one bats an eye, yet people are still willing to trash Gates how "arrogant" he was to Congress 20 years ago.
The only true hope is for EU step in and completely revamp the App Store
At least Google is not the only Android handset game in town and you can still sideload apps.
The court already validated that Apple disabling Epic account was okay.
Apple also has the option to continue allowing Epic to deliver password reset emails to private relay email addresses, using their pre-11th DKIM/SPF settings, so that users can continue to reset their account passwords by email and login and change their email address.
Cynically, I assume that if Apple does continue relaying password resets, Epic would change their systems in some way that intentionally breaks that somehow, in order to create further public pressure on Apple.
Prediction: future iOS release disables Fortnite app from running.
The Fortnite iOS app is critical even if you don’t play Fortnite on iOS. The app has the team voice feature so you can talk to teammates while playing Fortnite.
Everyone in your party can be playing on different devices (Xbox, PS4, etc.). If you open the iOS app then you can transfer the party voice to an iPhone. The sound is really clear and you can use your headphones or AirPods to talk and listen.
I’m sure some will be pissed if they lost access to that.
If you deleted the app or bought a new iOS device, can you still install Fortnite from previous purchases?
So I'm all pro-Apple for the whole Epic thing, but by this one action, I will refuse to use sign in with Apple for good.
They're basically hijacking users
If the demands are unfair or extortionate I don't blame people for not capitulating to them. This the same idea that forms the basis of civil disobedience.
Epic can continue to serve Fortnite just fine through the app store while the case goes though court. There is nobody being kidnapped and murdered here.
I'd guess that by disabling 'Sign in with apple', those games will now throw errors and stop working. And it'll look like Epics fault.
It's all a big game of optics and PR....
This undermines their entire user-facing SSO strategy with anyone paying attention. (The dev-facing “implement our SSO or you can’t be on the iPhone” isn’t really a “strategy” per se.) Of course apps will have to support it to be in the App Store, but this means that any user paying attention now knows that their accounts/logins for PAID SERVICES are potentially at the mercy of Apple’s control crusade battles.
Dangerous precedent.
This is a really ignorant and pretty crazy comment.
Apple is this year moving to their own silicon and likely next year we will see the fruits of the large number of AR/VR acquisitions.
Seems to me like you would need a lot of specialist talent to do both.
1. Epic had to know Apple would go nuclear. If they didn't, they're completely incompetent. Let's assume that's not the case. So Epic was itching for a fight. Maybe they were delusional about Fortnite's power here?
2. Apple is going nuclear here. The message is that Apple wants to crush this. This is Apple making an example of Epic. It looks like Apple is prepared for this fight and doesn't want it to gain traction;
3. Personally I think for the vast majority of developers the Apple payment ecosystem makes sense. It's just for the likes of Epic, Amazon or Netflix it doesn't as they're large enough to have their own so 30% is a huge fee for those companies and ultimately untenable;
4. Apple's monopoly will end at some point. I have to believe that even Apple knows that. So it's just a question of time and Apple doesn't want it to be now;
5. I don't think the solution is for anyone to be able to have payment infrastructure. That kind of Wild West is no good for anyone. It's just a question of what the compromise looks like;
I really do see this as the dying days of the Apple and Google app ecosystems.
Considering that one can get payment processing for a tenth of Apple's fee, I consider Apple's 30% to be outright usurious. I would be a little more forgiving if that same fee bought some discovery in the App Store, but no. Or maybe faster app reviews. Okay, finally; after how many years of multiple week waits?
You have people in this thread that are shocked anyone would side with Epic because they obviously broke the agreement but on the other you have people amazed that you can justify paying hundreds of dollars in markup per device, then be charged 30% for any software, and then developers still have to pay annually for access and pay for visibility. And even attempting to tell users cheaper ways to pay isn't allowed. It's like people desperately want to chuck all their income at Apple like dollars to a stripper.
I think if that were true, Apple wouldn't fight this fight. They would find some way to accommodate the giants and keep taking 30% of small developer's paychecks. I think most smaller developers would like the option to choose a different store. They might not use it, but who wouldn't like the option?
This is nothing but regulatory capture, just happening at a private level.
Meanwhile something like the Hey app has to hope that their complaint gets viral on social media to maybe get a slightly expedited App Review.
Can you sign into your account using an id and password?
> Epic broke Apple's ToS
Just because terms have been set, does not mean they are right or that they shouldn't be challenged. Remember, these terms were arbitrary when they were first set, why defend them as if it's written in the constitution?
> But Epic is a big greedy corp that only cares about its own profits
Yeah but Epic's win extends as a win to every small player in the ecosystem. In terms of size, Apple is a trillion-dollar company whereas Epic is multi billion-dollar company. The only people who can challenge Apple are companies like Epic, and not the small players and indie app & game developers.
> Apple's reactionary behaviour is just proving Epic's case
I know right! But that's the whole point that Epic started this saga with. Actually, it started before. Earlier this year HEY/Basecamp guys faced the same issue. Obviously they created a huge uproar, figured a path that works for them, and then shut up completely (instead of continuing the fight, as they promised they would). Epic here is fighting to make a change that will benefit everyone.
> But I'm an Apple user because I like the closed ecosystem
I get it, you want a platform to make decisions for you. In which case, you can continue using the App Store to get your dose of apps and games. But why does your indecision stand in the way of having alternative app stores where people who want to have a choice, get to make that choice.
> But Apple isn't a monopoly
There's 2 major phone OSes in the world. If you're making any kind of mobile game or mobile application, you HAVE to be on either or both mobile OSes. iOS has 60% of US market share, which means it IS a monopoly. Apple exclusively owns iOS. Apple is a monopoly.
Closing thoughts
In the end, I feel that people who don't understand the stand Epic is taking are people who have never done something of their own and failed or faced undue stress on their venture due to a large gatekeeper who stamps on whoever it pleases.
I feel the people defending Apple here NEED to defend Apple to satisfy their internal narrative, which would reflect in their life's pursuit to be a 1 in 10,000 employee of a billion-dollar company.
I'm airing the dirty laundry in the hopes that everyone gains empathy and perspective.
I'm a big fan of FOSS as much as possible.
The ad '1984' by Apple has become the biggest, most hypocritical piece of propaganda every created.
Yeah, so, did you check how much Epic earns with fortnite? I wont call this 'low margin' at all.
So my point is absolutely valid and it is shocking that Apple makes almost 3 times more money from Fortnight than Epic makes.
Imagine spending years building an app and then someone else ends up making 3 times more money from it than you do...
Interesting again to see that "fees" started the core battle fight. Visa and MasterCard, along with other brands, are acutely aware of the coming payments swing and continue on buying sprees to protect their toll road. Whether it be crypto, RTP, FedNow or remains to be credit card is yet to be known however these events and more will continue to push businesses to bring payments in house cutting out more and more middlemen. This is long overdue.
If anyone runs linux/win on mac hardware smoothly I want to know more details.
Namely, self-preference on the platform (Google, Amazon), false information (Facebook, Twitter), transparency of the source of ads, or in Apple's case usurious rates.
I imagine if platforms came with some regulations, all those folks clambering to "be the Uber of X" would sound about as cool as being a wastewater treatment plant, or a fire station.
I know, I'm old.
If a significant % of apps protest, then Apple has to bend down. Apple isn’t with much if they don’t have the developer and customer mindshare.
Microsoft lost the mobile market because they couldn’t make a viable AppStore. Those Nokia phones were fantastic but the apps were very subpar.