I'm not aware of any duty to deal in the DMA.
Apple don't get to deny access to their main competitor in this space just as a show of force. That is not fair, reasonable or non-discriminatory.
Also since the DMA bans arrangement that Epic breached before, there is no reason to suspect that the EU account will breach anything new now, I really doubt EU will let this slide.
Epic has been criticising Apple almost every single day.
No idea where this will actually go with the EU regulator, but US courts said it was okay for Apple to keep Epic's developer account suspended based on this.
>Epic’s egregious breach of its contractual obligations to Apple led courts to determine that Apple has the right to terminate ‘any or all of Epic Games’ wholly owned subsidiaries, affiliates, and/or other entities under Epic Games’ control at any time and at Apple’s sole discretion.’ In light of Epic’s past and ongoing behavior, Apple chose to exercise that right.
emphasis mine.
to wit: you are still banned from reddit or paypal or any other online service, even if you create a new account. if they can link it they'll ban that one too.
and this is a new account that epic games tried to register recently. so it got banned too. Not that complex/hard a concept really, unless you're trying not to understand it.
again, do you think you have a right to create a second reddit account after your first one got banned from the service? how about a bank account, do you get a do-over if you do some fraud and get your first account banned?
They didn't ban every epic account back then, just the violating account. I am pretty sure most of epic games accounts are still there, just the fortnite account got banned.
Remember that the whole goal of the DMA is that actors like Apple and Google can't decide to block competiton on a whim, the exact thing they are doing right now.
The EU is a sovereign entity, enforcing its own laws in its own territory. A US court ruling can't compel the EU to allow Apple to violate EU laws when operating in the EU. How would that even work?
In a word: treaties. Usual disclaimer that I'm not a lawyer yada yada, but treaties are generally why one country's laws or legal proceedings might affect another country in some way. Think stuff like US copyright law being applied to Europe [1]. I don't actually know how or if anything would even apply in this specific scenario (not a lawyer and I think it's pretty unlikely that the US court ruling would affect the EU DMA here), but treaties are what you'd look at to find out.
[1] Technically those countries passed their own versions of the US law, but it's all hammered out in the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty.
In the case here, Epic doing a behavior to go around a store policy that EU specifically is considering bad may mean they cast aside the US rulings.
From there a lot of things can happen to negotiate a resolution, such as negotiating penalties for not following said contract.
I don't think Epic will be able to convince a court that there is no resolution when Apple has already said before and now what they would require for Epic to resume their business relationship with Apple.
b) Epic is not their main competitor in anything.
It is pretty hilarious how people think some US court judgement would have any relevance on EU anti-trust regulation.
Apple doesn't need a court judgement to terminate a contract. They can just do it if they believe terms have been broken. Epic sued them in the US to reverse this decision and the courts found in favour of Apple. The process in the EU starts the same way.
And this is a basic contractual dispute seperate from the DMA which is why the many other parties have not also had their contracts terminated.
Also running an App Store is hard. It's going to take more than a few days to see competitors.
The entity that Epic will be complaining to about this will not be a US court. It will be the EC. The EC will look at the text and the intent of the DMA: to permit competing app stores. They'll also note that Apple has (arbitarily and without any technical justification) made a developer account a requirement for launching a competing app store. And finally, they'll note that Apple is terminating the developer accounts of the company most vocal about intending to launch a competing app store.
It doesn't matter what text Apple has in their contract about how they're permitted to close developer accounts for any reason they want to. It doesn't matter that they have a courting ruling from some other country. Apple chose to gatekeep app store competition on membership in the developer program. To prevent this from being used as an end-run on the DMA, the EC just an't allow Apple to terminate the licenses on a flimsy pretext. And "Tim Sweeney tweeted mean things about us" is not going to work.
b) Epic's actions e.g. pushing hidden IAP features were a fundamental breach of the contract in all countries where it was signed including EU. It was never about Epic criticising Apple.
c) Apple takes the first move in terminating the contract. Then Epic sues. And then the EU legal system will settle the matter. That is the process.
a -> that is the clear implication of one of the above comments, ie. if it was a legsl use of the contract in the US that somehow will shield them from dma violation, but dma supersedes contracts
It sounds like you lost the thread, not GP
It’s kind of silly to think that other companies that actually compete with Epic would choose to publish via the Epic store, since they’d just be giving money to their competitor. Either they’ll build their own stores or they’ll continue business as usual, using the device manufacturer’s stores.
To your other point, while a US court judgement is unlikely to have direct relevance to EU regulation, it does help establish a pattern of behavior on Epic’s part.
It’s also important to note that the provisions for establishing an alternative app store are designed to protect the consumer. Repeated violations of contractual agreements is clear evidence of a company’s untrustworthiness, and it would be irresponsible for Apple to do anything other than exercise the termination clause as a result..
On iOS apple has decreed that they deserve 30% of that action. And is now banning the developer of one of the most popular games (on any platform).
And Apple is basically a trillion dollar company. Tens of millions in lost revenue from Epic isn’t going to cause them to lose any sleep at night.
In a sense, yes. The term "sherlocked (by Apple)" exists because Apple routinely releases its own version of various apps
One reason we know this is that Epic Games Store on PC isn't Epic-only.
Another reason we know it is that Apple has (arbitrarily) forbidden app stores that aren't open to third parties. Even if Epic wanted to make it a first-party only store (why?), they couldn't.
You claim that Apple isn't a gaming company. It's true that Apple doesn't really develop or publish games. But the App Store is the world's largest games store, larger than e.g. any of the console games stores or Steam. Every estimate I can find is that significantly more than half the App Store revenue is from games.
Finally, you suggest that nobody would publish games on Epic's store. That might be true on iOS just due to the unreasonable terms Apple set for that (in particular the core platform fee), but it certainly won't be true due to competitors not wanting to give 12% to Epic rather than 30% to Apple. This fear hasn't stopped companies from publishing their games on the PC EGS.
Apple claim that all their requirements are there just to protect the consumers. They might be telling the truth, they might be lying and actually just want to make life as hard as possible for the competing app stores. It's hard for anyone on the outside to be sure which. But terminating the developer account of the most credible competitor on the day DMA enforcement starts is a pretty bad look, and makes it quite hard to believe Apple's story on why the requirements exist.
That's a circular argument. Apple is arguing (maybe wrongly) that Epic won't follow the rules. You can't refute that argument by saying "but the rules say they have to follow the rules".
They were making an argument about why Epic wasn't a competitor to Apple. That argument was based on the mistaken belief that Epic was looking to launch a store only for their only games.
In that context it's not a circular argument to point out that a first-party only store cannot be launched on iOS, so obviously that's not what Epic is intending to do.
It sucks because I was hoping this fight was basically in the rear-view mirror now, but it’s hard to argue Apple has no grounds for calling Epic untrustworthy and not even maintaining an arms-length business relationship in one jurisdiction with them. Who’s to say Epic wouldn’t try something similar again? Apple can still set terms under the DMA, and Tim has been publicly campaigning that these terms violate the DMA which isn’t actually his call to make.
Also one other point:
> Apple don't get to deny access to their main competitor in this space
As of today, and yesterday, and going back to the dawn of the iPhone: Epic isn’t anything in “this space” let alone Apple’s main competitor. They have stated that they intend to compete, and want to compete with Apple in this space, but Epic’s iPhone app marketplace is vaporware. It hasn’t shipped, it doesn’t look like they’re going to be able to ship now, and in its entire history of being discussed, has earned Epic €0.00 to date.
This is funny to point out since they did it specifically to sue over it (you pretty much can't other wise).
So Apple has their draconian 30% cut or there's literally no other way to have an application run on iOS policy, you can't challenge it without breaking it so you can sue, and because you broke it to sue you are now permanently barred from every making another iOS app.
Yea that seems fine, no monopolistic behavior here, it's only 49% of the phone market so it's fine.
The goal wasn’t just to sue Apple, it was to shank Apple with one hand while filing suit with another and they had multiple opportunities to get their account unsuspended at the beginning of the lawsuit even while the case proceeded, before it was eventually terminated.
These are devices so essential to modern functioning that the regulators need to come and tell both Apple and Google that unlimited web installs are user rights.
Epic is right. Apple and Google are monopolies over an entire class of computing, and it's a 100% artificial racket.
This might be what you want but without new legislation, because the DMA ain’t saying what you want, regulators are not within their rights to impose this requirement.
Just because you can ask your users to build a nuclear fission reactor, doesn't mean that they can or will.
F-droid gets ~3M MAU, with a 70% bounce rate. It's pitiful.
This is a pathetic case for mobile rights and freedom. Practically nobody knows how to make use of this model.
Installing software should be first class, not buried in the settings. It shouldn't have scare walls, either.
Google knows exactly what they're doing with the "freedom" they're letting end users have. 0.1% of users even know about or can leverage it.
The truth is the vast majority of users do not care about sideloading apks. Apple knows this. Google knows this.
However, it is important that it is allowed without any major hurdle (a warning dialog that you need to click OK on is not a major hurdle for me once you consider that many malicious actors will use this sideloading for nefarious purposes).
Google allows it and you are free to use it without major hurdles. Yes, most users don't care to, and that's fine.
You can't really say that since it isn't a common deployment strategy. If web installs of APKs were normal and had no road blocks, then the practice would be commonplace.
The users care about software. There is only one blessed path to get it.
I think that gave them much stronger standing and claimed damages.
It's a weaker argument if they voluntarily removed themselves from the AppStore.
Apple could have trotted out some 'We typically work well with developers in Epic's situation, but they never approached us so there was nothing we could do' excuse.
By forcing Apple to take an action, it concretely showed that Apple does in fact remove access if companies tried to forward users to alternate payment methods.
This idea that Epic had to breach to sue is part of a well crafted PR campaign by Epic.
People who did fight for civil rights were also punished with the force of law for their civil disobedience. The laws were unjust, but they still had consequences for those who lived under them, otherwise they wouldn’t have had to fight. Epic is also facing the consequences of their actions, but it’s only really important to them that they win. Everybody else invested in this fight (within the EU) will probably be able to get anything they want but Fortnite from some other app marketplace.
Epic wants better terms for everyone, not just their app.
They lost, but good news for all the not-Epics out there because there's other companies who stand to benefit from the recent Court and Commission-induced changes Apple made to their policies. It just won't be Epic specifically.
Here's the thing when you have a highly asymmetric power relationship, whether it be with a government or a business or any other large organization. You can point out how bad their policies are, and never break a rule, and people will just sort of sadly nod their head in agreement and go back to doing what they do. Or, you can force them to show just how ugly their rules/laws are on in real life -- not just theoretically. The latter actually gets things done, which is why I made the relation between the two things.
Or put more simply: show, don't tell.
Apple's App Store policies are, in my opinion as both an iPhone user and a developer, bad for everyone but Apple. So no, it's not important just for Epic that they win, it's important for the broader community of developers and users. Apple clearly is punishing Epic for fighting them and securing some victories, and personally I don't think we should tolerate that sort of behavior from Apple.
This is simply wrong.
Many have sued Apple over the legalities of the development agreement over the decades. They just always lose.
And Epic could've chosen to follow Spotify and lobby behind the scenes but instead chose the PR move.
iPhone marketshare in the EU is about 22%.
Are you a lawyer? You sound awfully assertive in making this claim, especially with the slight contempt/patronizing tone.
This notion that 30% is 'draconian' is curious since Steam -- on supposedly open PC -- costs devs more, and even 30% is wrong since it's not 30% below a certain revenue level or in the second year onwards, again in line or less than stores on other platforms.
Apple is perfectly entitled to ask for a 30% fee, as long as they allow for competition on equal footing (for clarity, this means they don't try to collect exorbitant rent from their competitors first). Let the free market sort it out.
You mean like CloudKit?
Apple SDKs exist and do things - including everything Steamworks does and quite a bit more.
If Apple decided to only allow apps distributed through them to use their SDKs or services, then would it would be fine because they'd be like Steam?
I don't recall ever playing for cloud storage on Steam, though.
Steam Cloud is truly a backup service. It's not fast even for tiny amounts of data. They'll even kick you over to an even slower lane if you store anything over 250 MB.
Meanwhile, you can do near real-time app synchronization over iCloud between devices.
But yeah, it'd be great if Apple bumped up the free tier size. That said, I've never actually had any problems storing app data on iCloud. Apple users seem to either pay for more storage or not backup to iCloud, so from a developer perspective, eh.
If you don't like Apple's cut, you couldn't (effectively still can't because of the absurd 1 000 000 installs/updates rule) go to any other storefront.
Before you bring up Xbox or Playstation: those devices are not essential computing devices. You can't function in modern society without access to both a computer and a smartphone. That puts a special burden on the companies that effectively own the software stack on those devices.
Not that I see it happen, but lets paint a PC horror scenario:
- Microsoft starts demanding to motherboard and laptop manufacturers to include their Pluton security chip
- Secure Boot can no longer be disabled
- They restructures the Windows kernel in such a way that DirectX is much faster than Vulkan
- They only allow games on the Microsoft Store access to DirectX 12.3 and 13
- Hell, _anything_ not installed from the Microsoft Store has dark-pattern warning pop-ups that make it both too confusing and too scary for the layman to install things from outside the store
- Microsoft also starts to demand a €0.50 fee from any developer that gets more than a million installs - with some updates counting towards installs. _This includes free applications_.
Do you see the problem now? Apple is essentially doing all of these things.
Dude cmon this is not how the legal system works, you can't just pretend that there's such a thing as an "essential computing device" as if iPhones are a human right or some shit
An Xbox or PS5 is not needed to live a normal life (if you ask my girlfriend it's even the opposite :)
If I want to file my taxes (in Australia), I need an authentication app that's only available on iOS or Android. I can't use an Xbox or a Playstation. That's the difference.
Before you say desktop OSs are not the same thing, it is to the government. The difference between iOS and macOS is the same as Windows XP and Windows Vista legally, Google only got dinged as a monopoly in the Epic case because of preferential treatment, not because it was "essential" or that the smartphone market is any way distinct or unique enough for that. Microsoft got dinged because it was 95% of the personal computing market in general. Apple is not even close here.
It is fine to suggest abuse and sending warnings, but if you've even remotely looked at any of the legal cases the US government brought against tech companies in the past, you'd know how much of a joke it is when people talk like this.
"Will there be a desktop version of myGovID?
No, a desktop version or browser-based version of myGovID will not be supported. To use myGovID, you will need your own compatible smart device."
https://www.abr.gov.au/media-centre/featured-news/business-s...
And given I'm overseas, I also do not have the option of using something other than an electronic device. To be honest, I don't even know if I could if I were living in Australia.
In the real world, Apple/Android devices are in a completely separate category from gaming consoles.
Try it out, for the duration of a month only use your smartphone for texting and calls and do not touch any PC. If you balk at that idea, well, there you go.
Why would I not touch a PC? You're just moving goalposts, Apple is not stopping you from buying a Chromebook. That's what anti-trust legislation is about.
No, they give them smartphones. You are so woefully ignorant.
> Why would I not touch a PC? You're just moving goalposts
I am not, you are. We were talking about how essential these devices are to daily life. My post even explicitly talks about locking down PCs.
It doesn't matter anyway, you are just looking to argue. I wish you good luck in life with that attitude.
More to the point, everything you've said is just a lie. I don't want any luck from you.
So, yes a smartphone is now an "essential computing device". This is no longer a matter of opinion. Its now a matter of fact.
I can only watch cable news on TV, am I going to call that an essential computing device too?
If that is the only way you can find out about what is happening to the government responsible for your safety and wellbeing or alerts about impending disasters... absolutely!
Phones are literally essential computing devices in modern society as it is the primary source of important information whether it be about family, government, or national emergencies for a large swath of the population.
Cool, it doesn't matter because US courts disagree with you, even if they did agree with you, there's nothing in the constitution that says the welfare of American society is in jeopardy because Apple sets rules on their own devices that you don't have to buy.
Your argument literally only makes sense if you pretend Android doesn't exist. It is not possible to exhibit monopolistic behavior if you are not a monopoly, and Apple is not a monopoly by any stretch of the definition.
* Doesn't have any rules about in game payments/utxns, if you want to use steam wallet for that they'll take 30%, if you want to process the payment yourself or direct users to a website they don't care at all
The last point is Apple's monopoly, along with no sideloading; because if I don't want to use Steam then I can use whatever else I want to.
But I agree, 30% even just on games purchases is too high, and we should reduce this profiteering across the board, Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. Good thing we can multi task, right?
EDIT: just realized I originally mixed up Origin and the Epic Games Store. My bad.
I guess we'll see in the light of the DMA. Apple didn't allow EA to compete before, but who knows now.
But this seems to be missing the point. Epic Games wants to put their store on mobile, they had android on the roadmap for years. They very much want to compete.
Second, wanting to compete and competing aren’t the same activity. They are not presently a competitor to the iPhone’s App Store. They may become a competitor in the future, pending presumably at least some discussions between Apple, the EC and Epic, and possibly a legal fight, but calling them an app marketplace competitor in the present-tense is not accurate nor justifiable.
The real and interesting question is whether they can do this before they prove Epic’s non-compliance with the new terms.
I also don’t believe Epic is doing this for anything other than Epic’s self-interest. They have no duty to other developers, and this is a potentially new line of business for them, not a liberation of iPhone app developers.
One of their main goals in bypassing IAP is to make these microtransactions non-refundable, so parents are screwed. They're the great satan.
I assume that one of the reasons Epic isn't as hated as EA is that "the TotalBiscuit audience" is too old to be in the target market for Fortnite.
> 6. The gatekeeper shall not directly or indirectly prevent or restrict business users or end users from raising any issue of non-compliance with the relevant Union or national law by the gatekeeper with any relevant public authority, including national courts, related to any practice of the gatekeeper. This is without prejudice to the right of business users and gatekeepers to lay down in their agreements the terms of use of lawful complaints-handling mechanisms.
I am not 100% certain that would apply here, but if the DMA doesn't protect against these things then I am pretty sure that EU will plug that hole to ensure gatekeepers can't retaliate unfairly.
They've been throwing tantrums against every company they deal with. They want to charge fees on their store and platforms. They want their IAP. But they act offended when any other company wants to charge them to be on their stores.
This is because Epic did things like pushing a hidden IAP system inside Fortnite to evade review and then at a later point switching it on. This sort of thing has been forbidden since the early days of the App Store. It is a fundamental part of the Apple-Developer contract that you allow reviewers access to all functionality.
[1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/21...
I can understand that Apple wants to safeguard their platform by requiring notarization, etc. But they are playing with fire here. One outcome of misbehaving could be that the EC will require full sideloading (Android-style), so that Apple cannot sabotage third party stores anymore, like they are doing now.