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Comment by shadowgovt | Hacker News Reader

This is Apple business as usual.

I worked at a company that got slightly disrupted when Apple blocked our dev credentials because of something else it didn't like we were doing. That broke our public-facing apps, but also broke our ability to deploy software we'd written in-house to our corporate iPhones, because it's the same code-signing credentials.

I'm glad this hippo-fight is shedding light on this aspect of the Apple dev ecosystem.

(Our Android devices, of course, had no such issues, since even if Google had objected, you can side-load an APK).

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> but also broke our ability to deploy software we'd written in-house to our corporate iPhones, because it's the same code-signing credentials.

This is an important point. Apple will retaliate and hinder your ability to get work done using your own in-house software if they decide they don't like you.

"If they decide they don't like you"?

That's simply not what occurred, here. Nobody at Apple blithely decided randomly one day that they "didn't like" Epic.

Epic violated the terms of their agreement with Apple. It's as simple as that. Now yes, there has been a shitstorm of other conflict rising out of that, but on a fundamental level, Epic decided to blatantly violate a contract. That's what happened.

Where’s the part where Apple didn’t decide they don’t like Epic? Whether or not Epic’s actions were the catalyst for that decision (and I agree, they were) is irrelevant to GP’s point.

What does that even mean? Of course Epic's actions being the catalyst is relevant. It's the whole reason this is even happening. Are you trying to imply that Epic's actions are irrelevant, but "Apple just plain not liking Epic" is? When you make a claim that Apple is doing this just because they don't like Epic, you have the burden of proof for that claim, and you can't just flip that around with "where’s the part where Apple didn’t decide they don’t like Epic".

I think an aspect that is missing in our discussion is that not every company had to openly fight Apple. Netflix for instance got their deal without drama. From the court docs Epic and Apple were also negociating but it didn’t work well.

What I am saying is there is no “simple as that” way to look at it, and things could have gone way differently, even if Epic didn’t budge on getting rid of the 30%. In an alternative world Epic and Apple would have inked a deal at a lower revenue share and it would be over. Just like how Epic and Sony had a standoff regarding crossplay that got resolved without titanic lawsuits.

Can you please give a link about Netflix deal with Apple? Brief google search yields nothing.

Apple carved out a special ‘reader apps’ category for Netflix and other providers to bypass the standard restrictions of needing to implement all digital payment in-app.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90519293/the-surprisingly-simple...

While looking for it, I also stumbled upon the special deal Amazon has with Apple allowing them to only pay 15%: https://9to5mac.com/2020/07/30/apple-developers-equally/

I'm really glad things didn't work out that way.

How are startups supposed to break into a market where they will always have to pay Apple 30% until they reach an incredible scale, and established players will have this huge advantage with Apple in addition to all their other advantages.

Every large company gets better deals on everything than small companies. Try manufacturing anything where you have small tub rates? Do you think startups get the same deals from the cloud providers as the big companies with multi million dollar spends?

Do you think no name artists get the same deals as Beyoncé or Taylor Swift?

Is this the world we want?

Really? The world where you get discounts based on volume? That’s the world as it has existed forever. Do you want to now have a law passed where no company is allowed to offer bulk discounts?

I also can’t get the same component discounts if I opened up “Scarface’s PC Shop” to build and sell PCs that Dell gets.

> The world where you get discounts based on volume

We're talking about creative and innovative creations here. Not grocery products.

You'd want to incentivize small players, not smash them.

So let’s talk about “innovative creations”.

Musicians - the stars that sell more songs get much better contracts than newly discovered singers.

Authors - Steven King gets a much better deal from publishers than a new author.

Game publishers - big game publishers get much better deals from console makers than indy developers. Even Epic got much better support from Apple than indy developers. Do you think I could get Sony to make a “Scarface Edition” of the PlayStation?

https://bgr.com/2020/09/17/fortnite-lawsuit-apple-epic-games...

Software developers - almost every software company makes special deals with large enterprises.

Cloud Providers - I’m assuming Azure and GCP make special deals with large enterprises. I’m not going to say one way or the other about Amazon since I work at AWS (but nowhere near sales).

Why are you defending the status quo?

What are you proposing? That non proven talent should get the same terms as people with a track record?

Is it also unfair that junior developers without a track record should get paid the same amount as someone with experience?

Should I get the same contract if I start a podcast as Joe Rogan got from Spotify?

Would you like the government to step in and force companies to offer everyone the same terms regardless of the size of the deal?

While we are at, should the government itself not be allowed to negotiate?

Should WordPress (the open source foundation) not be allowed to make a special deal with Automatticc?

Strawman.

We're discussing Epic vs Apple and an Epic victory has potential to benefit a huge portion of small players of the segment.

Your statement was

> We're talking about creative and innovative creations here. Not grocery products.

As if giving better prices with the expectations of higher volume wasn’t the standard in “creative” industries. Obviously it is.

How much have “small players” benefited in other “creative” industries? Do you really think the 30% cut is the only thing stopping indy developers from being successful in the iOS App Store? If that’s the case there should be plenty of Indy developers with successful products on Android. Where are they?

There is no money selling apps on the App Store anymore. Most of the money is coming indirectly from services (where Apple doesn’t get a cut) and play to win games with in app purchases. The other money is coming from ad supported apps and games where Apple doesn’t get a cut.

The problem with your assertion is that it postulates that the winner got to where they are based on a truly level playing field.

Thats not even close to the truth.

To cite high level examples, amazon got to where they are by exploiting loopholes in sales taxes that they dodged for decades and taking advantage of USPS subsidies. And later taking advantage of international rate subsisides. Virgin got huge by literally selling records with no stamp tax.

Im not fully versed in apples track record, but im willing to bet apple likely exploited labor laws, political favors, corporate liability shield rules, pollution externalities etc that are not available to smaller players.

There are very few megacorps that can stay by claiming to have a superior product and not much else.

Since unfortunately we cannot make political contributions dissappear, not eliminate all regulations that distort a truly level field...then we created antitrust..which yes is unfair and also against freedom of association but as i explained is necessary for a free society to maintain some semblance of equal opportunity.

Everything big must by definition come crashing down.

This is what happens in nature. Regs are allowing dinosaurs to live.

If you are not coming back down the rules need to kick in to do so. Kill dinosaurs.

Every single one of your examples the creator could self publish. Apple apps you are forced to use their services, and you have to pay for the privilege

Epic tried “self publishing” on Android. How well did that work out?

> That's simply not what occurred, here. Nobody at Apple blithely decided randomly one day that they "didn't like" Epic.

This was a response to an anecdote from a user working for a company that isn't Epic, a company that was punished by Apple for an arbitrary reason. As a result, they couldn't use their in-house apps on the hardware they purchased because of Apple's decision. According to that user, that decidedly did occur.

There is plenty of evidence from developers all over the internet, and even here on HN, of Apple arbitrarily removing apps from their iOS and Mac App Stores, and of Apple arbitrarily enforcing rules.

100%. Its especially the arbitrary/selective enforcement.

Ive had it happen... even when we could demonstrate other apps doing the same and getting updates pushed through.

I don’t understand that about Apple. They’re able to hire the best. And the best people don’t get emotional. Apple’s heavyhanded actions against Epic have the image of an emotional, irrational, vengeance-seeking person at the helm.

The best lawyers working at Apple would (I assume) direct Apple’s management towards the best course of action - including keeping the company out of any legal trouble.

I don’t know a fraction of the things Apple knows - but from what I do know Apple had zero rational reason nor cause to do anything beyond pulling Fortnite from the App Store for breaking the rules (fair-and-square). Everything - and anything - beyond that in a high-profile case like this runs a tremendous risk of PR backfire. In their position as custodians of their walled-garden that needs to attract developers to generate revenue Apple needs to project an image closer to Mister Rogers than Mister Burns.

Apple doesn’t need to be petty or combative - it they’re the /good guys/ they sure aren’t acting like it. As I don’t know all the facts my mind is racing to speculate a reason for their capriciousness and I come up blank.

If Apple’s playing some long-con to screw-over Google, perhaps by announcing some surprise 0% fee for IAP for “good citizens” on their platform or some alternative scheme then they’re going about it very poorly.

I agree with the other GP posters that at this point Apple is actively doing harm to their own platform by both scaring-off major software publishers like Epic and reminding the rest of us devs that Apple giveth and Apple takeawayeth.

I imagine a progressive EU state will pass legislation prohibiting walled-garden owners from abusing their position to extract excessive rent - and from inconsistent application of their own review guidelines, which will have a viral effect within the EU’s single market - which will severely mess-up Apple’s strategy because within the EU single market the rules mean that Apple cannot decide to withdraw from a single country that it doesn’t like but not the rest of the single-market (but before people point out that Apple is a US company remember that Apple’s tax-advantaged Irish corporation is central to their worldwide operations).

> They’re able to hire the best.

They are probably fairly able to hire the people they want the most, that is, the best from their perspective, sure.

> And the best people don’t get emotional.

Perhaps that's how you define best, but not what Apple filters for or intends to filter for.

I feel like someone else is running legal these days, because from the period of 2012-2017ish Apple never got involved in these petty spats. Then Spotify, Facebook, Google, Epic came along and now Apple is always complaining to the press about whatever troubles them…

Remember when they sued Samsung over rounded squares? Or the swipe-to-unlock patent?

They stopped doing that for the most part for a while.

Remember when Steve Jobs threatened IP lawsuits against Palm for poaching his employees? Of course, he had to back off because the iPhone (along with every other smart phone today) uses almost all of Palm's IP. Getting involved in spats is part of Apple's DNA, originating in its founder.

There's a reason I started that time period with 2012.

Y'all should see how some apple folks act in meetings. Best is subjective. Apple is extremely petty and combative. They will dump on people if they don't get their way. They're great at what they do, but the way they do it is questionable at the least.

>I don’t know a fraction of the things Apple knows - but from what I do know Apple had zero rational reason nor cause to do anything beyond pulling Fortnite from the App Store for breaking the rules (fair-and-square).

IANAL. My suspicion is that rescinding the developer account was done solely as part of Apple's legal strategy, as a way to strengthen some argument in their side of the coming court case. Keeping a walled garden is enormously important to the company, so a gaggle of lawyers would be scrutinizing all decisions in order to maximize the chance of success.

I'm pretty sure it was also sending a message to other companies with big apps - stick to the agreement or we will retaliate.

On the other side, keep in mind that Epic is also an enormous company with an army of lawyers. They probably guessed this was a possibility, and they may yet succeed in trapping Apple in a retaliation/breach-of-contract quagmire.

> They’re able to hire the best. And the best people don’t get emotional.

A players do their best to hire A players.

B players hire C players. C players hire D players, etc.

It takes a few B players at the top to ruin the whole thing.

If being able to do something was the limiting factor, governments would hire the best and yet, the opposite seems to be universally true.

All groups fall prey to B players running things and ruining everything which is why we have this wonderful renewal mechanism of birth and death, so that things don't stagnate too much :)

> If being able to do something was the limiting factor, governments would hire the best and yet, the opposite seems to be universally true.

But governments generally aren't able to hire the best because their smaller hiring budgets mean they can't always (but sometimes can) offer industry-competitive salaries.

A few departments are able to hire the best people though - especially when they're for "force-multiplier" positions, like the US Digital Service, for example - which was started by former Google engineers.

> They’re able to hire the best.

Certainly not. Out of the best programmers that I know personally, roughly half feel very strongly about Apple limiting their rights to tinker with their hardware. So I would assume that there are lots of people that Apple would like to hire, but they just don't like Apple anymore.

Yes because the “best programmers you know” is a representative sample.

Maybe "the best" person behind these decisions wasn't making an emotional play but a business decision that will pay off.

Maybe (and very likely) your armchair analysis just makes a lot of presumptions that aren't accurate. By drafting this kind of analysis with your comment on "the best", you've basically claimed that you're the best, and you're scratching your head why Apple isn't making decisions that seem obvious to you as an HN reader who is well-read in the articles about Apple.

Not trying to be mean. It's just a weird read like those long financial analysts back-splaining or predicting stock performance based on a graph. "Well here we have a barfing camel that will need to leap high to get over that resistance wall at $1000!" Sounds like someone high off the smell of their own farts.

> you've basically claimed that you're the best, and you're scratching your head...

I did preface my assessment with an outright admission that I don't know anything about what's going-on inside Apple's legal dept or exec team.

Even if Apple does have a cunning plan under wraps for coming out on top from this whole episode, it's demonstrable that Apple is directly harming their relationship with the wider developer ecosystem through their deliberate handling of Epic's case.

We both agree that now all of Apple's movements with Epic are calculated and and directed from the top echelons of the company. I feel you're saying that Apple's more aggressive and perceivably heavy-handed and retaliatory tactics have been deemed necessary and in the best-interests of the company - whereas I feel they're unnecessary and actually put the company in legal jeopardy (e.g. for contract-law retaliation, etc) which is definitely not in the company's best-interests. How can we reconcile our two different beliefs?

> ...but a business decision that will pay off.

As an AAPL shareholder, I sure hope so!

> And the best people don’t get emotional

There's an awful lot of human history that disagrees with that assertion.

Technical competency and emotional intelligence are (possibly completely independent) axes a person can be measured on. Steve Jobs himself was a notorious hothead, and companies tend to attract people similar to the founders, or at least the kind of people the founders think make good employees (due to the founders acting as an initial filter and setting standards).

I doubt all the "best" (what does that even mean?) people in the world are happy to trade their time for millions.

Some of them? Sure, but I'm sure a big portion of them is spending time building something they value

Meanwhile, all the people who saw this coming years ago and never bothered developing for Apple: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Was it because nobody spelled it out for you? Or because you thought it wouldn't happen? Or because you thought it couldn't really hurt anyone supporting such a shitty developer relationship?

Or because really, you thought you could still make a quick profit before you got screwed over?

Surely the next megalomanical super corporation will be fair to humans, or something.

Just to make it perfectly clear; Just because there's a lot of people using a certain platform, doesn't mean that platform actually supports those people. It's not a vote. Flies didn't vote for the spider's web. Look at users/consumers/etc anywhere they get the shitty end of the deal too.

So developers lose, consumers lose, Apple is the laughing third. And "Apple" isn't even human, but mostly made of pieces of paper, enslaving humans.

Meanwhile developers develop, and consumers consume, keeping them both in this ecosystem circling the drain.

You realise that there is an actual possibility that at some point, a few of these megacorps will win, at the same time, just cutting off our access to general purpose computing forever[0]. A battle that is already partially lost on certain fronts (chips). That's what you're risking playing stupid games.

Yes I'm getting a little bit annoyed because it's been pretty obvious for at least a decade now.

[0] yes Google/Android is also not supporting you being a dev on their platform, they WISH they had the power over devs that Apple had, and would make the same anti-consumer / anti-developer choices in a non-human heartbeat

In our case, it was because there was high internal demand for support for our internal tools on the iPhones our employees already had and were familiar with.

The risk analysis made it a cost worth bearing.

> You realise that there is an actual possibility that at some point, a few of these megacorps will win, at the same time, just cutting off our access to general purpose computing forever

Actually, I don't. How would that scenario go? For starters, you just brought up Android, which I can install quite swiftly on any number of the mobile devices in my house with no proprietary Google software whatsoever (and even the F-droid app store if I want that "store" experience). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_custom_Android_distrib...

If you’re talking about Onavo then I have to side with Apple on that one :)

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