Google must open Android for third-party stores, rules Epic judge
theverge.com
theverge.com
Well, I guess Google's market cap is only 2 trillion compared to Apple's 3 trillion, so I guess that's fair.
Both Google and Apple's platforms need to be cracked open to competition.
If the company that literally doesn't allow users to install ANY application, yet alone a whole store, is in the clear, it's mind boggling that Google's situation is the one they took issue with.
Apple literally has a higher market share in the US.
What's the lesson for future leaders in tech companies?
The US judicial system makes as much sense as their tax code?
Apple didn't need to do anything, but they didn't "win" that convincingly.
On top of that is the DOJ antitrust case starting next year.
On top of that is the stalled, but not dead, legislation that would bring the US somewhat aligned with the EU in terms of competition.
I don't think Apple weathers all of this without broadly opening-up iOS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Innovation_and_Choice...
So yes, Apple could be subject to similar restrictions in the future. Either through another monopoly case, or [imo more likely] regulation.
how does some previous judge decision matter for weather you _should_ crack down on a company?
it doesn't, right
the government can change laws, and judges can overrule decisions and as the US supreme court has shown even if there isn't "any new evidence in favor of the new decision but even evidence in favor of the old decision" decisions can be overruled and be done 100% in opposition to precedence of the same court.
Looking at previous decisions and leveraging them basically is the job of a lawyer.
IMHO this decision won't stand long. You cannot apply different decisions to similar cases.
How is Android closed in practice?
Go here, download and install the APK: https://f-droid.org/en/
You now have a third party app repository on your phone. And actually every Samsung device comes with their own app store installed in addition to Google Play. It's not perfect, Play having the privilege to automatically install updates, but good enough.
Also, AOSP is completely usable even without Google's apps or Play Services, and one proof of that is that Amazon forked it for their Kindle Fire.
The arguments from Apple fans are truly bizarre.
Having two competing companies being tried for the same monopoly is tragicomic, and only to show how rotten the courts have become.
Imo this is more similar to John Deere creating tractor DRM to lock out other entities from repairs. If Toyota came up with a proprietary motor design such that no other repair shop or parts manufacturer could make repairs, it'd be a similar situation. As it stands, there's 3rd party companies making replacement parts and a secondary market with used parts in addition to varying degrees of interoperability with other parts.
There is no secondary market for apps since they're all sold as licenses and never own anything. They also intentionally put restrictions in place to prevent 3rd parties from creating "replacement" apps
https://www.ftc.gov/advice-guidance/competition-guidance/gui...
> a "monopolist" is a firm with significant and durable market power. Courts look at the firm's market share, but typically do not find monopoly power if the firm (or a group of firms acting in concert) has less than 50 percent of the sales of a particular product or service within a certain geographic area.
Note the "typically", and other courts never even had this rule of thumb to begin with...
The reason it sounds weird is because you are insisting on wording it a particular way.
They're a duopoly. They're being tried for abusing that duopoly. Nothing rotten there.
In real court (with real lawyers and real judges), precedent often matters (often, it matters quite a lot).
Informing the court of [what may be] meaningful precedent is important; without this deliberate informative step, the court might not know about it at all. The court cannot take anything into consideration that it has no knowledge of.
(Despite the black robes and literal ban-hammers, judges aren't all-seeing or all-knowing.)
Apple does not compete with Google to distribute apps on Android and Google does not compete with Apple to distribute apps on iOS.
The value (to consumers) of the App Store is not that it is so locked down, but rather that it is the only way for people to put apps on the phones they have already bought.
But wait, you might say, Apple actually can open an app store on Android and compete with Google now!
But c'mon, it'll be a cold day in hell when Apple helps make the case that these rules should also apply to them.
> Judge Rogers issued her first ruling on September 10, 2021, which was considered a split decision by law professor Mark Lemley.[63] Rogers found in favor of Apple on nine of ten counts brought up against them in the case, including Epic's charges related to Apple's 30% revenue cut and Apple's prohibition against third-party marketplaces on the iOS environment.[64] Rogers did rule against Apple on the final charge related to anti-steering provisions, and issued a permanent injunction that, in 90 days from the ruling, blocked Apple from preventing developers from linking app users to other storefronts from within apps to complete purchases or from collecting information within an app, such as an email, to notify users of these storefronts.
> ...
> The Ninth Circuit issued its opinion on April 24, 2023. The three judge panel all agreed that the lower court ruling should be upheld. However, the Ninth Circuit agreed to stay the injunction requiring Apple to offer third-party payment options in July 2023, allowing time for Apple to submit its appeal to the Supreme Court.[79] Both Apple and Epic Games have appealed this decision to the Supreme Court in July 2023.[80][81] Justice Elena Kagan declined Epic's emergency request to lift the Ninth Circuit's stay in August 2023.[82]
> On January 16, 2024, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeals from Apple and Epic in the case.
Given that the claim I was responding to implied that it was foolish of Google to cite Apple due to them being a monopoly, can you elaborate on why you think this ruling somehow was an obviously bad idea for them to argue as a precedent? To repeat myself from before, I'm _not_ expressing personal opinion about whether iOS and Android should be allowed to operate the way they do, but asserting that the court ruling does in fact state that the current way Apple handles third-party app stores is legal.
People have accepted that either manufacturer or mobile provider owns their phone. You do not have administrative rights and some apps even disallow being run in a more free environment.
Also they need to make sure the playstore is not required for the phone to work correctly which I'm not sure is the case on stock Androids currently.
What I could see: make Play Store and Play Services uninstallable like any other app.
But yeah, Google doesn't allow rival app stores to be distributed through the Play Store, nor does it give access to the full Play Store catalog to third-party app stores. Frankly I'd never even thought of the latter thing as something I or anyone would want, but sure, ok, make them do that.
Meanwhile, Apple gets to keep their App Store monopoly (in the US at least), a situation that is even more locked down than Android's has ever been.
I absolutely agree that Apple's platform needs to be opened up too. And while I'm often not sympathetic toward Google on a lot of things, I can absolutely be sympathetic toward them feeling like they are being treated vastly unequally by the law.
But on Android, you do have a market for app stores - there is Google, and then there are various bit players (F-Droid, Samsung Store, Amazon Store, and others). And Google is by far the biggest, and using their position to set the rules for all the others, including actively hostile actions like de-listing some apps if they don't offer exclusivity to Google Play, disallowing Google Play installation if the OEM doesn't ship it by default, etc.
The point is that Google is already open
It would be informative to know—by jurisdiction—the stats of what type of smartphone OS the key deciders had in their pockets.
In short, Epic sued and won because Google got between them and Samsung.
In general, in the courts, it's a lot easier to ask a judge or jury for someone to stop doing a thing (blocking their software from being pre-installed) vs. forcing someone to do something they're not currently doing (allowing any third-party app stores).
This is actually very insightful given the history between Google and Samsung with Tizen.
Couldn't you reword that as allowing unsigned and self signed software to be installed? You can push your own apps to your iOS device but iirc Apple artificially limits the number of self signed apps that can be installed
- Stop requiring Google Play Billing for apps distributed on the Google Play Store (the jury found that Google had illegally tied its payment system to its app store)
- Let Android developers tell users about other ways to pay from within the Play Store
- Let Android developers link to ways to download their apps outside of the Play Store
- Let Android developers set their own prices for apps irrespective of Play Billing
Removing those restriction on billing in the app will probably have way more impact in the end.
- Yup, this is the steering that Apple "lost".
>Starting January 16, developers can apply for an entitlement to provide a link within their app to a website the developer owns or is responsible for. The entitlement can only be used for iOS or iPadOS apps in the United States App Store.
There's so many stipulations to getting this approved that it's hard to call it a win. Just more delays
- good, but ofc irrelevant on Apple for now.
- And good. Somewhat relevant for Apple but the stipulations above make this hard.
I mostly hope this precedent can be used against future Apple proceedings to get that store opened up.
Most developers use Google's app signing service to ensure that a loss of the signing key will not strand their users on old versions. In that case, it would not have been possible for Amazon distributed apps to use the same signing keys. I say would not have, because these new requirements mean it will actually now be possible since Amazon could distribute the updates published to Google Play, and doing resigning shenanigans would throw the baby out with the bathwater (allowing users to seamlessly switch app stores)
Tangentially, how does Android handle signing key rotation/expiration?
Epic v Google was a jury trial, and also there was plenty of evidence in discovery to Epic’s favour[1], and also there was evidence that “Google destroyed evidence and repeatedly gave false info to court”[2].
There was a fair amount of coverage and analysis among legal commentators about why Google lost. It’s worth reading for people interested in trial law.
(Especially read [2] about how Google sought to hide conversations from discovery. It’s cringeworthy.)
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/12/tim-sweeney-why-epic-did-bet...
[2] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/03/judge-finds-goog...
Look at Microsoft. They have been found guilty of anticompetitive conduct related to their open Windows platform in multiple jurisdictions, but not so with XBox.
Either never claim your platform is open, or refrain from anticompetitive behavior in the "open" market you choose to create. .
I get the reasoning, but I chose Android because it's open and I've never run into any of the anticompetitive problems people claim are so damaging. If Google had known that this was the deal at the beginning, I doubt they'd have created Android the way that they did and I wouldn't have an open platform to use—we'd just have two walled gardens.
How is that better for consumer choice?
> Stop requiring Google Play Billing for apps distributed on the Google Play Store (the jury found that Google had illegally tied its payment system to its app store)
> Let Android developers tell users about other ways to pay from within the Play Store
> Let Android developers link to ways to download their apps outside of the Play Store
> Let Android developers set their own prices for apps irrespective of Play Billing
Have you really never ran into any apps that would have hit these restrictions ?
If you've never have use the Play Store in the first place that would be the case, but otherwise I'd assume every app you got from there are subjected to those.
The restrictions on non-Google billing did impact my employer, but it was less of a problem in the US as in some other countries where Google only billing meant we couldn't charge users as very few had Google compatible payment methods and Google wouldn't let us use other providers that could accept money with the payment methods people actually had. We had other methods in our apk download, but I recall having to take those out, too.
Of course, Apple made payment go through them, but most Apple can accept payments from most of their users, and a lot of their users have a payment method on file.
I suspect you mean, you chose Android because Google _said_ it was open.
Plenty of tech people chose Android because they knew others would be able to carve out a workable system based on the open source bits even if Google didn't actually keep it open.
This ruling is basically against Google rug-pulling - for example, looking the other way on third-party billing until deciding (after critical mass) that you are going to start enforcing the use of Google's payment services for certain classes of apps. At that point you are destroying businesses with such back-tracking.
They were slapped down because Google claimed they were open because you allow third party stores, but creating roadblocks (Play services, DRM licensing and device certifications for streaming apps) and applying pressure or doing revenue-sharing schemes with device manufacturers on the back-end to keep them from making their own store.
It is very difficult for a judge to slap Apple down for antitrust when Apple has been very careful to keep consistent rules and to only change them when it is considered invariably considered a benefit to the App Store developer (subscription rate reductions after one year, small business program, opening up new categories of apps like legacy emulators).
It is hard to argue a point when Apple started abusing their position when their behavior is consistent. If the App Store is a bad deal then why has it grown to be such a juggernaut from nothing?
That is why the EU took a different philosophy with the DMA.
I appreciate that Android did not go down this route because I don't believe any of these choices would have caused Android to fail.
That sounds like you either haven’t heard all of the indie developers complaining or are inclined to find reasons to say problems with “your side” have some other explanation. For example, this was just a couple weeks ago where Google’s “open platform” blocked a popular app from doing what their mutual customers wanted:
https://ia.net/topics/our-android-app-is-frozen-in-carbonite
If someone chose iOS because it’s closed then the judge has decided it can stay mostly closed.
Also Google is where it is because they pitched a platform that was friendlier for carriers to load up with crapware than Apple was. It wasn’t really openness for openness’ sake. If Google hadn’t done that we might have been in a world where Palm or Microsoft were the secondary or primary player next to iOS.
I'm concerned about the precedent this sets. As long as this is the state of US law, we won't see another open platform developed in the US because these rulings together say that the only way to be sure you're not punished for anti-competitive behavior is to ensure that no one can ever define a "market" around your platform. Only a fully walled garden is safe.
Apple published the rules for their App Store over a decade ago and has largely stood by them so Apple is not being punished.
Having a closed platform isn't illegal. Just ask Nintendo.
Anticompetitive behavior is illegal, even when you are anticompetitively competing in a market that you yourself chose to create by creating an open platform. Just ask Microsoft.
If Google's leadership didn't understand that legal restrictions their choice placed upon them, that failure is on Google's leaderhip.
> "If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, "the law is a ass—a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience."
(Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist)
They (and Microsoft) could have created an open platform and then competed in the market they created withiut resorting to illegal behavior.
But it never was. You were defrauded and everyone who made that choice for those reasons were illicit market gains because of the secret agreements Google exerted over the entire ecosystem around you.
It was never really open but you also never really knew about that because all of the real options were taken out back and killed before you saw them.
No. I knew exactly what I was getting and I've been enjoying it for years.
Is it perfect? No. But I know better than to demand perfection when something entirely suitable to my needs is already available.
XBox is only made by Microsoft, there are no XBox OEMs, and Microsoft can do whatever they like to their devices. They're not forcing any manufacturer to do anything, because they are the manufacturer. Same with iPhones, Play Station consoles and so on.
Windows computers and Android phones are manufactured by many companies, and Microsoft and Google were engaging in anticompetitive behavior by forcing everybody who wanted their OSes to do certain things, and that's the problem here.
It helps a lot that they are the only sellers of the XBox. With Windows they were strong-arming third party manufacturers. The situation is similar with Apple and iOS. Because it’s “their” phone they have more control. Google was telling other manufacturers of android phones what to do, which crossed a line.
A lot of people don't seem to appreciate reasoning from principles around any of this stuff. They just want to be able to do X, Y, or Z and any ad-hoc law or court ruling that gets them there is A-OK with them, consequences be damned. Personally I find that unfortunate. I enjoy well-reasoned debate that thinks through the logical consequences of various policy decisions and how it affects everyone, not just end users exactly like themselves.
No, people are correctly pointing out the fact that this is blatantly unfair. You are claiming that 2+2=5 because a judge said so.
If you are concerned about the "consequences" maybe you should start thinking about how open platforms are now legally disadvantaged to closed platforms.
My belief is that, fundamentally, everything should be open. Users should have full control over their devices, and manufacturers should have no place in dictating anything about how they are used, what software can and can't run on them, etc. (Note that I'm not being anti-proprietary-software here; I don't think companies should be required to give away their source code if they don't want to.)
I get that this isn't relevant from a legal perspective. But so what? I can talk about where I want the laws to go.
I don't like that app stores engage in rent seeking behavior when it comes to payments, but that is a separate issue.
The solution to this remains the same as ever: curation of software packages. You can install any app you want, but you're probably going to use some front-end to manage that (Play Store, App Store). It's up to those platforms to curate what apps they host, and up to the user to delegate safety c he checks to platforms they trust.
It's the same way that playstation can set its own terms for playstation game sales. They make both the software and devices.
Also Amazon was a key reason why the ruling indicates the other stores must have access to play store apps as well.
Additionally, Google royally messed up this entire case from the start by being so openly egregious. Amateur hour sending emails about buying a company to shut them up from suing you.
Globally, yes. Not in the US, though. iOS sits at around 57%, with Android at around 42%.
> Apple also has the benefit of being a sole operator of its platform, whereas Android and the Play Store aren't Google-only.
But yes, I think this is the key reason why Google and Apple are being treated differently by the law.
I think that's garbage, though, from the perspective of what feels reasonable to me (regardless of the law): Android has always been more open than iOS, and available to many different manufacturers and organizations. It's a bit weird that this openness means that they are required to be even more open, while a platform that has always been much more closed can remain that way.
Want to actually call it an 'Android' device and/or avoid an ugly warning message to your users? [0] Gotta agree to a bunch of Google's terms including preference for their mobile app suite over others. But hey if you want some extra revenue from search you can just agree to not offer a 3rd party app store [1]. Oh also anyone in OHA (most major phone OEMs) can't make a product with a fork without getting into hot water...
To be clear I hate them both and miss the future that could have been with Maemo. As it stands however Apple is just being consistent and having full ownership, whereas Google is arguably strong-arming other manufacturers in a way that limits consumer choice, even if it is a bit more open.
[0] - AARD Code, anyone?
[1] - Smells of MSFT/Intel Bundling/exclusivity Rebates that resulted in various levels of antitrust action/settlements
Google is bad too but Android is still much more open than iOS today even if it has gradually become less open over time.
I think punishing the more open platform and not the completely closed one will just incentivize companies to develop completely closed platforms from the beginning. And I don't see how that's actually good for consumers.
The best outcome would be to force both to open up more.
I certainly agree, the problem from the legal standpoint is that stuff google was doing was too close to stuff that other companies have gotten in trouble for one way or another.
> The best outcome would be to force both to open up more.
Agreed.
This lawsuit is focused on Google. It's existence or the facts conveyed within do not provide any cover to Apple. They don't prevent Apple from facing the same lawsuit or from being covered by the same judgement.
Do you feel this way when we put a murderer away? I mean, "his murder was illegal, but yet, some people still get away with it?! What is this injustice?!"
> so I guess that's fair.
Would you prefer court cases to involve several dozen defendants at once? Would that be more "fair?"
I thought Apple did face the same lawsuit, against the same plaintiff, and Apple won.
Presumably because that's not a question that generally needs answered. A lot of people growing remembering microsoft getting sued have this flawed idea that monopoly always equals bad. There are plenty of legal monopolies, companies don't get in trouble until they start doing illegal stuff to keep their monopoly. A lot of areas naturally favor a monopoly, that's not illegal or necessarily bad.
Having the second ruling be consistent with the first? Following precedent? This is terrible for competition where two companies in the same market can live under different rules in the same jurisdiction.
Apple's monopoly is effectively blessed now.
The other is a Civil damages case.
Their format, rulings, and outcomes are not comparable.
Nothing in the civil case precludes Apple from receiving a criminal complaint.
I want Google to make ability to side load an actively supported first class feature of the platform. There can be a warnings and additional security measures (scanning, permissions boxing etc if necessary) but nothing that in practice has the effect of preventing a commercial entity from shipping a functional app outside of their store.
Huh? You download an apk and click a security prompt to allow non-store installations and it installs them, it's not particularly hard or complicated.
Easily ? No. But yes, you still can do it. Though Google restricted for example Total Commander from installing software and automatically updated it to the latest version even though it was prohibited in settings.
When two cases have different defendants making different arguments, the same plaintiffs making different arguments, and obviously different sets of facts and evidence, yes, those cases can have different outcomes.
Though obviously its quicker to lookup the market cap of the defendants, if you actually want to understand why the outcomes are different, it requires engaging with the evidence and arguments.
When the lawsuit started, apps installed like this couldn't be automatically updated without going through the scare screens again manually.
Let's say you install 15 apps on F-Droid. Every time you want to upgrade your apps, you were forced to manually initiate, and then sit through, each app update as they're installed in the foreground. This was because of deliberate limitations in Android.
Whereas on the Play Store, you could hit one button to update all of your installed apps and the installations happened in the background.
I believe it was after Google was threatened with lawsuits that they modified Android to be less tedious when it comes to managing and upgrading apps outside of the Play Store.
But yes, non-Google devices make this way more difficult, e.g.: Xiaomi devices actually has a scary warnings and they trigger at each reinstall. Also, they messed up something in the install APIs so you can't update apps unattended, needing to trigger the popup to install at each update.
So yes, in general, this is not the fault of Google but third-party companies.
And Android WearOS is still hard for side-loaded stores to work with at all without developer debugging mode I think and is tightly integrated with the phone stuff.
There is Supreme Court precedent for this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)#Ope...
So, 2007-present, that's when.
Android is acknowledged as a Linux distribution. Linux, also known as GNU/Linux, incorporates significant GPL-licensed code. By contrast, Apple has used BSD derivatives for a codebase, and BSD licenses, while F/OSS, are not "viral" in the way the GPL is, so Apple is not required to redistribute source code, or submit their patches upstream, and they can make proprietary additions anywhere they like.
From a Twitter message by Rubin in 2010.
https://techcrunch.com/2010/10/19/andy-rubin-twitter/
> the definition of open: "mkdir android ; cd android ; repo init -u git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/manifest.git ; repo sync ; make"
https://www.osnews.com/story/136235/google-further-guts-the-...
Google is (was) free to only ship Google Play on Pixel phones, just as Apple only ships the App Store on their iPhones. What Google wasn't allowed to do was to "bribe" and force carriers and OEMs to favor Google Play over other stores. This is what they did, and now they have to face consequences.
The business models are very different here. Apple makes their own phones with their own OS, and can do with them as they please. In Android land, however, it's other companies making the phones, using a custom fork of the open source Android operating system, and Google is engaging in anticompetitive behavior by pushing these companies into Google Play if they want to get any of the other Google services on that OS.
Through we should consider that monopoly law wasn't created for monopolies specifically but for companies which can wide spread systematically abuse their marked power in a way which undermines any free marked dynamics and is detrimental for the state and/or population. Just when the term(s) where coined you needed to have at least a local monopoly for this in practice (or rarely duopoly). But with how IT changes the marked and how this allows artificial constraints and apps being written for specific platforms etc. this isn't true anymore and we really should stop using the term monopoly it's misleading.
Anyway if you take this spirit of the law and a (IMHO misguided) believe that Apple has abusable power but is not (much) abusing it (i.e. it's not detrimental) you could argue in favor of this decision.
---
IMHO closed platforms are detrimental per-se even if it's a duo, quad, or even bigger pole. I.e. your OS should be free anything else is just inviting detrimental market power abuse and often in subtile hard to properly list ways. To be clear while I thin you OS should be free (as in you are free to use it however you want ant it shouldn't have not legally required artificial limitations) it doesn't imply free hardware (as in you can use whatever OS you want). While the later is grate I'm not sure it's necessary.
Anyway what also needs to be considered are how it can be made artifical harder to freely use your OS. Like e.g. inventing a new term for installing (side loading) making a lot of PR about how dangerous it is, making it require additional steps etc. I.e. yes you should be able to install your app store of choice through the "default" app store with the default store having little say in the matter (outside of refusing fraudulent/illegal store operators, through not in a way where they can just declare someone as such and thats it).
Also as a side not the marked cap for a company operating in many fields isn't necessary relevant at all for deciding if it engages in market power abuse in some specific field.
Google, in contrast, started with a FOSS operating system and then added proprietary components provided under licensing terms deliberately intended to claw back your right to use the FOSS parts. For example, if you want to ship Google Play on a device, you can't also manufacture tablets for Amazon, because Fire OS is an "incompatible" Android fork. Google provided AOSP as Free Software and then secretly overrode that Freedom with the licensing terms for GMS.
Edit: Can the downvoter please explain why you downvoted? I am legitimately not trolling, I just want to be able to factor this in my decision in November because I think it's an important issue and I don't see a "direct vote" on it taking place any time soon.
I also found the following resource: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36877026
Trump’s trade war with China would probably hurt Apple. But his allies’ plans to gut federal regulatory powers and cut corporate taxes still make him a net friend to one of the world’s richest corporations.
Note that the FTC and DoJ remain independent agencies [1].
> Can the downvoter please explain why you downvoted?
Didn’t downvote. But a partisan aside about a judicial decision on a case between private parties is off topic. (I’d also be shocked if there is any overlap between undecided likely voters and HN users, the latter who tend to be informed.)
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_...
Surely politics has something to do with this decision? These things don't just happen in a vacuum. The judge presiding over this case was appointed by Barack Obama and generally government deregulation is something that Republicans advocate for.
Why? Plenty of judges rule without partisan predictability. This case doesn’t seem to have any more politics involved than any federal case.
If you have evidence of something interesting, sure, bring it up. But “maybe there are other interests involved, find the evidence for me” isn’t a conversation.
Given the FTC going after Amazon, I think it's a relevant question to consider. these cases will inevitably influence if Apple is gone after, but who goes after them will depend a lot on the US's government.
In the US, after Epic Games v. Apple, Apple is required to open up in-app purchases to third parties.
In the EU, the Digital Markets Act declares the App Store a gatekeeper and requires Apple to support third-party stores.
[1] Section 1.1.6: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/
The Apple cut is also absurd but I'm sure that will be rectified sooner rather than later.
You don't have to pay any license fees for Unreal Engine if you use Epic exclusively for payments. They give you 100% revshare for 6 months if you agree to not ship your game on any other app store.
Let's not kid ourselves, Epic never cared about consumer choice or a fair playing field, they only want the ability to profit without having to invest in building a hardware platform.
Epic Store on Windows can't be accused of this monopolistic behaviour because Windows is not locked down and alternatives to the platform's distribution exists. Epic Store is one of those beneficiaries.
Windows and Epic's deals demonstrates there exists a market with competition and choices for developers and users. Developers can chose to take Epic up on their deal. Users can chose to use the Epic Store or not. The courts ruled that this choice does not effectively exist on Android because of all the dealings that Google did to prevent competition.
The whole point of this lawsuit is that Google suppresses alternative pricing models in the Play Store. You can not like a proposed alternative payment structure (as a developer), or not want to use Epic Store on Android. It would be great if the market could decide on what it wants here, instead of Google preventing any competition.
If that takes tying Google's hands behind its back for a few years, fine.
Taking a 30% cut should have been, prima facie, evidence of monopoly abuse.
They got a few customers from their giveaways - they should stick to those and further improving their store, maybe some people will actually want to use it.
>Epic never cared about consumer choice or a fair playing field
of course not. But enemy of my enemy. As of now their arguments benefit the consumer. If they ever do form a monopoly and keep doing these tactics, we can talk lawsuits.
That's optional. Play Store requirements around payment methods is not.
That is literally what competition should look like.
Large companies will clamor for freedom and consumer choice when it benefits them. They will put a hammerlock on consumers when it benefits them.
Well yeah; they're a software company. I also write software. Should I build my own hardware platform to release my apps?
- Not fully understanding something, but having an opinion about it, with no attempt to learn more.
- "All companies are evil" yawn
Next time, can you try a more exciting criticism of Epic? We've been going through these lawsuits for four years now, every easy original thought has been thought and poasted about, you need to think a bit harder for your next comment.
I don't think we are going to see a healthy competitive marketplace with 4 years of chaos where every app store has the same apps, there's no curation at all or incentive structure for stores to win over app listings, and app stores get created and destroyed at the whims of a random single person.
Maybe the committee will operate within the confines of this outline to set more structure and make this workable, but it seems very handy-wavey in how this is going to work...
We point to PC gaming as a horrible state of affairs no one in the mobile world wants; but it really isn't. There were a half-dozen storefronts a few years ago. Today: Everyone is on Steam. There's EGS if you play Fortnite. I think Rockstar still has their own stuff, maybe? A couple blizzard games are still only on battle.net. Xbox has their app for Game Pass, but all their games are also on Steam. That's... it. Steam won. Its never not won.
It turns out that markets love centralization. Its an efficiency thing.
Mobile will be the same. Epic will have their store. A few others, maybe. You'll still download all the apps you care about from the App Store. Your user experience won't change (unless you want to give Fortnite a try).
What might change is: It gives a pressure point developers can leverage against Apple to negotiate better terms. Their services revenue will drop... maybe.
I say "maybe" because opening platforms and reducing prices also tends to grow the overall pie. See, there are companies like Netflix who refuse to support Apple IAP for subscriptions because the terms are unfavorable to their business. If those terms became more favorable: 10% of a million is more than 30% of zero. There are companies like Adobe and AutoDesk that refuse to build any meaningful software for the iOS and iPadOS platforms, because (in part) they would be willingly sacrificing the agency of their business to Tim Cook (for 70% of all sales; a penance). With storefront options: You might have to download the Adobe Storefront, but you'd, at least, have After Effects. No one reasonable would pick "not having After Effects" over being given the choice between using After Effects with Adobe's inevitably shit launcher/storefront and not.
Can't you buy dyson vacuums at the dyson store, at target, and on amazon?
Personally, this is making android phones a lot more interesting.
We'll see Android users needing to have multiple app stores just to get all the apps they want/need, along with the updates. From a user experience point of view, that sounds worse, even if the competition is meant to make things better.
The store can plan for what they'll do 3 years later, so progressively injecting IKEA competitors in the mix and getting people to know the other options could lead to a durable business. Especially if IKEA loses enough sales that they'd want to keep selling their goods in third party stores to keep shelf space from competition.
To get out of the metaphor: if alternative app stores become big enough to thrive on their own from this initiative, app makers will keep pushing their apps other there. In particular this whole scheme assumes some level of compatibility, so the burden should be light enough.
So what, it's how the music world operates as well. Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube have virtually all that one could ever want to listen (and I'd guess Youtube has the biggest catalog from all the pirates LOL).
I'm all for more mandatory-licensing options, particularly the movie/series space is long overdue for getting a few butts thoroughly kicked - all the streaming sites combined are now more expensive than a cable bill.
The horrors of free will and choice.
You pay such a high price for living in the walled garden. I honestly can't imagine why you would _want_ it.
Epic could already to their own Play Store, but they didn't/couldn't. Freaking Amazon had their app store and they failed. Samsung also has their own App Store and how many non-Samsung phones run it?
The EU has a lot of well-meaning laws, but create quite the mess of unintended consequences.
Realistically, this never happens. making a platform isn't some cheap endeavor like a landing page for a website. Most people will stay on the play store and use play services. Those with more skin will consider alternative stores, and then lastly some will make their own platforms.
That one feels a step too far to me. It seems like it should be the developer's job to share their app with third party stores, not Google's.
Not sure how that will work for paid apps, but for free apps...maybe it's good?
I have mixed opinions here though (as a user and as a developer)
Hope to see things start opening up though. Very happy for Epic and developers everywhere.
Google Play is full of trip wires, you trigger one and your account is gone, your career of independent developer is over
Did his wife sign an Apple NDA that applies to family members? Or does he not want to anger Apple out of fear of retaliation towards his wife? Either way, I don't see how the word "ethics" applies to either situation.
It's like how judges should recuse themselves from cases where they have a stock portfolio including one party to the case.
Currently, if you do that, the review fails for "Payments policy violation" (for the donation link at least, link to fdroid should be allowed, although I think I had some issues in the past...)
Apple and Google not only control hardware, kernel, OS facilities, user land, software loading/download facilities, but also payments, code signing, and even venture into other forms of banking.
On top of that, they're actively blocking potential competitors to many (most) of those pieces.
Offer developers money or perks to launch their apps on the Play Store exclusively or first"
Huh, why does that sound familiar epic games store?
> Google will have to distribute rival third-party app stores *within* Google Play
Right now you have to side-load 3rd party apps.
Also Google must:
> * Stop requiring Google Play Billing for apps distributed on the Google Play Store
> * Let Android developers tell users about other ways to pay from within the Play Store
> * Let Android developers link to ways to download their apps outside of the Play Store
> * Let Android developers set their own prices for apps irrespective of Play Billing
* It's only recently you could have unattended updates of applications.
* It was not possible to distribute additional app stores in Google play, third party stores had to utilize sideloading which includes "scary" warning messages
* Googles terms and conditions essentially required the play store be installed by default by vendors.
The ruling may be on the extreme side but it's still good to see things moving back to a more open software world. Google is probably not afraid of it, they know that their users will keep using their services because they are better . (Just like how browser choice in the EU did not move the needle).
Any rule enforcing openness should be celebrated, as a win to change the culture of walled gardens that has plagued technology for decades
ehh. We can discuss that all day. All I care is that any apps they don't allow should be able to find or make a platform that does allow it. Freedom doesn't mean that others will think like me and choose that freedom over familiarity.
Force Google to open source Google Play Services and allow users to choose which which publisher's version of it they want to use.
That thing has become a huge proprietary spyware blob and without it the device is nearly useless. It's nearly obligatory for developers to code against it.
Woot! I'll be able to buy books in the Kindle app again.
It is also exceedingly ironic that browsers played such a key role in wrestling control from the dominant windows platform to the benefit of Apple and Google.
> Offer developers money or perks to launch their apps on the Play Store exclusively or first
That's exactly what Epic did trying to make their store happen. They're not the good guys, they just want part of the profit.
Other than that, I see this as a win for other developers and consumers.
Although I don't think this is over, Google will do everything to fight this.
From engine wars to app-store wars, why I get the same feeling 20 years later?
> The events and initial actions on Epic's lawsuit against Google were brought on the same day as Epic's suit against Apple, but Google stressed the legal situation around their case is far different. Google asserted that the Android operating system does not have the same single storefront restriction as Apple's iOS, and thus allows different Android phone manufacturers to bundle different storefronts and apps as they desire. Google said they are negotiating with Epic Games far differently from Apple in their case.
I have no idea how the two cases are different, but Google said they were. And it sure sounds like Google specifically chose to take a different path, which ended up being a loser. Cautionary tale of hubris and stuff.
Very funny, that's Epic's bread and butter on PC.
I have a feeling, that headings become more ambiguous over time. OK this one is with capital E on Epic. Still fun to think about the other meanings.
There is absolutely no point to any of the 3rd party app stores, if you cannot install your banking, travel or payment apps from them. Who cares about an EPIC app store, where games are ever so slightly cheaper, if you can't install the app for your government ID from that store?
There needs to be multiple store fronts, with the option of adding different package streams so that any store can carry any app. This is obviously going to be to confusing for the average person and will make the app stores unusable for most.
The whole idea of alternative app stores is idiotic, unless companies and governments aren't being forced to distribute their apps on all of them. Maybe you can have two app stores at the same time, but then I question what we actually gained. I don't want 3rd party app stores because Google and Apple are overcharging, I want them because I don't trust Google and I want to be able to use an Android phone while not giving Google ANY information at all. But I really don't care that Apple and Google are charging developers 30%, I really don't. I have only a few paid apps, and they where price just fine.
I just can't help but think of a world where every company pulled an apple. Not being able to install your own applications on your own device is horrifying to me, and we were just one android (apparently stupid in hindsight) decision away from that being the case.
Imagine if that was the case with pcs. 30% obligatory apple tax or you can just go release your own phone.
If Apple's store isn't illegal then they will switch to their model. Android will lock out alternative stores completely in response.
They'll probably rename Android to something else and say its a new, more secure OS.
Isn't it like very, very obvious that while you and I and everyone else on HN appreciate the power of sideloading, average users are more easily tricked into bypassing the protections of well-run app stores?
Now do Apple.
Gee I wonder if these sorts of rules also apply to Epic Games
Apple and Google both have #2 but only Google has #1.
"Illegal monopoly" is strange terminology. What does it mean. Monopolies are not illegal. Anti-competitive conduct by a party with monopoly power is illegal.
Google's Android is pretty much as open as things can be, yes, from hardware manufacturers' perspective it is a shit deal that you have to install their entire suite of apps if you want to use Play Store. Yes, this thing is anti-competitive but Epic wasn't fighting along these lines.
It is not fair to call Google anti-competitive for wanting to maintain their supremacy on their own app. It's like you have a shop selling your brand's merchandise and you are very successful but are told by a judge to allow other brand's merchandise on your acquired customers. Truly wild.
With Android, you can always install competing app stores on your phone by going to the website of the developer. It makes zero sense to want to make things "more" open. Yes, Google warns you that you are installing an app from other location, but that is on the user man and is good opsec on google's part to not let any random user install apps from anywhere. There should be a little barrier to prevent apps from being installed and google's os does that.
There are plenty of apps in India which operate outside the purview of Google's Play Store and doing business of billions of $. Google and Apple both don't allow gambling apps on their platform but there are so many companies here that are distributing their apps through their website and succeeding and they are a big business at that. I doubt there are any other examples in the world of apps succeeding doing billions of $ in revenue outside Apple/Google stores.
The actual action needs to be taken on Apple's App Store who are the biggest offenders of walled garden and not letting users make a choice. I am pretty sure, if the users got to know that they are paying more for apps on their apple devices than their web counterparts, they would be up in arms. Devs cannot even convey to their users that they are paying more when they buy through app store.
This is ridiculous.
Capitalism and freedom are truly dead in the name of small short-term conveniences. Or, most probably, invested interest in increasing share value for big-tech.
If the USA decides that monopolies are the only way it is going to lose the tech race. The death of AT&T created some chaos but a lot of opportunities for technological and business advancement.
Breaking all monopolies is the only way forward for a healthy competitive economy. Big share value gains just show that the system is not working. That there is no competition, no choice, just a rent-seeking economy that reduces value at the cost of everybody.