> Apple's statement is misleading. You can read my email in Apple's filing, which is publicly available. I specifically said in Epic's request to the Apple execs, "We hope that Apple will also make these options equally available to all iOS developers..."
Note that the bulk of developers would not be in a position to run their own appstores as epic wanted to. Their goal is to pay less revenue to Apple but also get rid of the level playing field of the App Store.
Even if Apple agreed to the demands and made the options available to all developers, Epic would have an advantage.
They also have the advantage of being a trusted brand, whereas the games space is full of scammy apps. There’s a reason google specifically requires IAP in that space.
Right now you don’t have to trust a game developer on apple or google to pay them. With Epic’s change, big brands would get a trust afvamtage they could use to increase their dominance.
So asking to make the changes Epic requested was more self serving than it seems. Lowering apple’s commission would benefit all developers. But own IAP and separate app stores would benefit big developers, like epic.
Why would developers need to run their own app store to compete with Epic? It sounds like if Epic gets their way there would be a plethora of app stores which would all need to compete against each other for developers. The end result would be store fees dropping to the point in which they are more closely aligned with the value the store provides. That is good for all developers (although whether it is good for all users is debatable).
They wouldn’t be competing on underlying frameworks though. Epic’s letter asked Apple to extend its app install frameworks and related frameworks to competing app stores.
So the only point of competition would be price, or marketing savvy. This seems to resolve to my point above: reducing Apple’s cut would benefit all developers.
Not clear how the rest does, except perhaps indirectly by forcing Apple and Google to surrender their businesses. And big developers would have a relative advantage. It’s not that small developers would have to run an app store: it’s that the ability to run an app store provides relatively more advantage to large companies who can.
Whether small developers had an absolute improvement might depend on whether prices dropped to match the lower cost structure.
Epic also wants anyone to be able to install apps on ios outside app stores. See point #2, app stores and apps available via direct install. This would lower trust in apps. The trust of the app store has led to an explosion of developer revenue. Not obvious that dismantling this system will help small developers.
There are small developers that make free stuff and when someone asks for an Android port this devs can export an apk but for and .iOS person they can't give them a package.
Other example a kind makes a small mobile game and shares it with his friends , except his cousin is using iOS so he can't install and play it.
All this things you can't do on iOS is not because Apple is incapable of allowing this scenarios, is because this is not in Apple financial interest.
I assume someone would say something about security, the kid would maybe put code to steal your pictures, then my answer is the sandbox is garbage if you can trick it or trick the user to give full access for a small game and a competent developer would have placed code to fake data if needed.
Apple is getting greedy and pretending it acts for the user is getting harder and harder and eventually they will reach the limit, starting a fight with Epic will cost them more on the long run IMO because it makes more mainstream Apple practices that we on HN already knew but regular people did not know.
Epic has claimed that Google put so many restrictions that it effectively wasn’t an option for them. Google has measures to persuade people not to turn on sideloading, for security reasons.
So Epic wants both Google and Apple to abandon their security models and allow direct installs of apps.
Phones have been an enormously popular computing platform in significant part because of the security model. Non-technical users can use them easily and reasonably trust the apps they install. Epic is asking for a rather radical shift.
Android comes in at #2 for number of distinct vulnerabilities and iOs at #8 both in the top ten and both above windows of all things. Which rings in at #10 for 7 and #13 for 10. OsX sits at #4.
This kind of misses the point, which is that the user is the weak link in most personal computing security models. You don't need a CVE on Windows to get malware on the machine; you just need to trick the user into installing your nasty piece of software--perhaps by making it look like something the user wants.
The point of the single-source App Store is that the app review creates a line of defense against such trickery, on behalf of the user.
This chart is a bit misleading - MacOS is the equivalent of windows 7, 8.1, and windows 10 combined, which places Microsoft at the top where they belong. iOS has overall fewer code execution and privilege escalation vulnerabilities as well.
Android has always been a shitshow,so the gnu link is unsurprising - however I did not find an example of iOS malware.
Fair point. The ease of use is just as important to the ubiquity, and Android especially has a lot of vulnerabilities. But, vulnerabilities also come with popularity: people try harder to find them.
1. How much less secure would Android be without even the play store’s security measures?
2. How much harder would people work to find vulnerabilities on such a ubiquitous platform used by non-technical users if any app could be installed?
You would likely get more malware and more app hesitancy.
>You would likely get more malware and more app hesitancy.
More malware, possibly, though android has plenty of that even with the play store. But, app hesitancy, maybe from a small subset of people, but i feel like those same people already show app hesitancy.
Only from my own experience, but i treat apps from the app stores about the same as i do random apps from the internet and do the same thing to verify in both situations, look at reviews and information about the app and make my judgement based on those. It's the same either way. All app stores do in my mind is aggregate reviews to one place, whether it's the play store, the apple store or the steam store, etc. I trust each of them about as much as something such as apk mirror, in all cases, i'm relying on the opinions and information provided by others that have used the app, if no such information is available, i consider it suspect and avoid.
The method acquire an app isn't what invokes trust, it's other user verification, no matter whether that app came from a store, a repo, a random website or any other method software can be delivered and it always has been, since the days of floppies.
I’m less familiar with android, but on the ios side there are very real limits to what an app can do, even if it has malicious intent. And app review greatly limits apps with malicious intent. ‘
You still need to exercise caution with permissions, but an individual app itself has pretty strict limits. Most of the security flaws are tied to the OS itself.
>Most of the security flaws are tied to the OS itself.
Which was the point of my original comment, that phone OS's provide the illusion of being more secure, while being about as secure as any other platform.
From what I can tell, computers are about as secure as they've ever been, whatever the kind, which is, alright depending on the user. It's always been like that and still is.
Eh. Unless iOS exploits are uniquely tuned to be unnoticeable... I go home to help my parents with their Macs and am always removing crap, usually from their browsers. I haven’t yet had to remove crap from their iPhones/iPad.
Is it 100% secure? No. Is the user experience that I desire available due to app stores and sandboxes? Yes.
Epic couldn't convince people to sign up outside Google Play and sideload, so they gave up and came back. Turns out Google was delivering value for their 30% after all.
Aside from what user graeme said, there are plausible reports that epic tried to contract with samsung or huawei or some fairly sizable android hardware maker to put their app store, or at least fortnight, on the phone directly, and google then informed the hardware maker that they'd block the google play store from those devices if they did that.
But it does highlight the problem here.
Let's say I take epic at their word, that this is not okay (and I'm tempted, this whole judge jury and executioner thing is ridiculous. Apple has now said that they regret that they can no longer spend time with Epic on making sure the Unreal engine runs well on mac hardware. That is so close to 'nice house you got there. Would be a real shame if something happened to it' it makes the hairs on my neck crawl).
What then? Sideloading with security measures is something google has but that's according to epic not good enough (and I'm again tempted to agree).
But clearly some free for all fiesta is no good for the users. And I don't think governments, certainly no the US government and probably not the EU either, are capable of defining the playing field, this stuff is too complicated.
So... what then?
I would hope that Apple (and Google) realize that this fight has only users, and the name of the game is to walk the line so that nobody is pissed enough that you end up with exactly what just happened. And it looks like apple has decided they like the hole they are in, as it sure looks like they are frantically digging.
I’ve been confused about this since they filed suit against Google... don’t they have what they want there, the ability to run their own App Store? So it’s not that they want to run their own store, but... what? They want to be in Google Play but without the same cut? I haven’t seen anyone address that.
Epic says that it made a deal with OnePlus to preinstall Fortnite, but Google leaned on the manufacturer to scrub the deal.[1] I think that puts joining the Play store in a different light.
There argument is basically that, while it's true on a technical level that non-Google app stores can exist, as a matter of practice Google strongarms OEMs into not shipping phones with them. (I'm not sure how true this is, just my interpretation of what their lawyers argue)
Other companies would not be able to run an appstore, but they would be able to list their work on 3rd-party appstores (and maybe have their own direct distribution channel like a website?). The point is to allow competition.
One thing that would enable is narrow appstores with active curation—sort of what Apple promises but, if the store is fully of scammy games, doesn't quite deliver. A company could run a game-specific store with much stricter requirements than Apple's store.
So your idea is that the world should revolve around developers.
As a user instead of going to one private, trusted and secure store I now have to visit dozens. All of which are going to be competing on price which means they will look to sell my user data to make money.
And what makes anyone think that the App Stores will simply not be dominated by Amazon, Epic, Valve etc like most gaming is today. In which case this is all about transferring money from one large corporation to another.
> All of which are going to be competing on price which means they will look to sell my user data to make money.
Didn’t even occur to me. It’s the obvious way app stores can earn money if there was some legislated effort to cut the commission fee and force multiple stores.
If I don't want to sell my product on the App Store, or if I have to make you pay more for it, I risk losing you as a customer. That's a trade-off every developer is aware of. Most apps that can publish on the App Store, will still publish on the App Store. On the PC, Epic sometimes has to shell out a lot of money to get an exclusive release, because a lot of people just use Steam.
However, a lot of apps can't publish on the App Store, because of the strict anti-competitive rules.
On my Linux desktop, I install sodtware from multiple different locations, administered from a single tool. I do the same on my Android phone, with F-Droid.
The repository model is basically the best of both worlds, from my perspective.
Having a bunch of app stores to choose from sounds like a way worse experience for the end user. I'd have to jump between different app stores to see where a particular app exists and also probably compare the different prices. On top of that I'd have to decide which app store is trust worthy.
If I'm reading this right, you are saying that competition would be worse for consumers? Can you name a scenario where opening up a market to competitors has been a net negative to consumers? I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I haven't thought about it for very long.
Yes going around to different stores to find the best price is annoying, but you are under no obligation to do it. You can't say shopping around is a worse experience for the end user because it is a problem entirely of their own making. If shopping around is that much of a hassle you could always just stick to the Apple App Store.
As a user it’s annoying. On a PC in order to access every game you need to have Steam, the Epic store, the Microsoft store, all these stores... argh! You want game X? Only on Store A. Game Y? Only on Store B! What a pain for no reason! I just want one store that has everything in it. Why do we always have to have a dozen competing versions of everything?!
Same with Netflix, and Hulu, and Prime, and Disney, and HBOgo, and on and on and on. As a user it’s on my shoulders to navigate all this complexity. Yuck!
This whole “single AppStore” thing is only a big problem to developers. That’s why it gets so much attention and air time here because only developers whine about it and we are all developers. As an end user I just want one app distribution system to worry about.
Do you really think this is a net negative? On balance, that having to open a couple of launchers to find your game is a greater hardship than the benefits of a competitive ecosystem resulting in better prices, a better deal for developers and ultimately more games to play?
I think it depends on the distribution. If there are a lot of exclusives, instead of just being on different stores with different prices it's probably fine. But judging by digital store history, the games are likely to be exclusive to one store.
Imagine if toilet paper is only sold at walmart, and paper towel is only sold at target. This already happens for some things of course, and for those in physical stores it's still annoying. This is a large part of the reason I shop on Amazon. Most stuff I want are there.
Well the better prices is just a theory. I don’t even see it planning out. The cheaper fees don’t even have to be passed on consumers - if you had a beat selling property, why would you discount?
If epic wins, they’ll eventually raise prices and reap all the profits. Why wouldn’t they?
On a PC in order to access every game you need to have Steam, the Epic store, the Microsoft store, all these stores... argh! You want game X? Only on Store A. Game Y? Only on Store B! What a pain for no reason!
This is a problem because each of these stores use their own proprietary client. If instead they all used a public API then there could be an open source client that can access any of the stores.
We of course already have a possible client: the web browser. It works great for all sorts of e-commerce sites. It just doesn’t work for installing games from these stores. That could be changed, though.
I think if Apple is forced to open iOS to alternative stores, then I would like to see an API based approach. Force all the stores to compete within the same app, so they’re only competing on price and selection.
Companies with power and leverage won’t switch to an “open api” and generic ui. It’s better for them to offer their own proprietary experience and to be able to improve it.
Even if what you described was something companies would buy into... sounds like instead of N App Store programs to run, there’s be N App Store websites/urls to visit. what about payments? You’d need a trusted platform operator to avoid everyone having their own payment system and users having to enter details multiple times.
Also API to WHAT? Every App Store on windows has api access... to the os and install mechanisms. Any further value add services will require a trusted online partner (payments, security reviews, downloads?).
Competition focuses on price with a presumption that quality won’t suffer because users will switch. Well that isn’t necessarily so, it’s a hope rather than a hard fact. There are many examples, that I leave as an exercise to the reader, where a customer “chooses” a lower cost item with poor quality, including harmfully so.
It's not just about competition, it's about exclusivity. It's not about going around to different stores to find the best price necessarily, but rather going to different stores to buy different things.
There are multiple physical malls and deportment stores where you need to drive from one to the next and consumers have zero problems doing that, why would it be different for applications?
It really depends on what "app store" means. Is an indie Mac developers's web store an app store? I'd say yes. They just sell their own apps, not the apps of other developers. I'm not sure why legally this would be restricted to only app stores that contain the apps of multiple developers.
> Even if Apple agreed to the demands and made the options available to all developers, Epic would have an advantage.
I don't know that that's the case. Steam, the Humble Store, GOG and Microsoft (just to name a few) would all be happy to compete if the terms were right.
Thats a hilarious way of saying 'At least the highway robbers are charging the same at all crossings so I don't have the burden of figuring out what is the cheapest path'
Epic doesn't even want to run an "app store". They want to sell Fortnite items to Fortnite players to be used in Fortnite's world. Those objects never leave the Fortnite ecosystem. They're not installed on the phone as "apps". Some of them have no client side presence at all.
You clearly didn’t read the letter. Point #2 specifically asks for an Epic Games app store on iOS. Available through the iOS app store but also through sideloading (direct installation).
First of all, the app store is not a level playing field. Many companies get special treatment, important apps like WeChat (which is effectively an App Store) get to ignore the rules.
A multitude of App Stores on iOS would create competition among the stores themselves. For instance, if you want to publish on the Epic Store, they only take a 15% cut, therefore games on there can be cheaper.
Lastly, who says you need to run an app store to publish apps? Being able to publish directly is viable on other platforms, after all. iOS has a good-enough security model so that even malicious apps are limited in what they can do. Apple does not and can not scan for malicious behavior within that security framework anyway.
That's scanning for private APIs, not scanning for malicious behavior. Use of private APIs is not inherently malicious and the security framework can not rely on private APIs not being used.
When I read the mail initially on The Verge[1] a few hours ago, I definitely got the idea that Epic was open to negotiate in the first mail. The mail was the first contact Epic and Apple had about this, before anything happened, and was sent around the time of the Apple antitrust investigations. The mail mentions the benefits to consumers, and that Epic would commit to providing a high-quality, secure, user experience. He requested that Apple would allow Epic to provide a competing app store, and hoped that they would also make those options available to other iOS developers.
I don't think it's too far-fetched to think that Tim Sweeney wanted to negotiate bringing the Epic Store to iOS. The Epic Store is one of the bigger stores on PC after all, so he might think that Epic would be able to get an exception.
It's mind blowing the number of people who are defending apple everywhere by making any excuse they can. Some of them have comments implying otherwise if you check their history but apple gets a leeway. Is there some kind of cognitive dissonance?
Why are people so attached to a greedy corp worth 2 trillion whose entire business rely on child and exploitative labour, has avoided billions in taxes, has been bullying others legally, don't want you to own anything or repair (climate?), etc?
People who have overused whataboutism as a logical fallacy to stop an argument are doing the same today themselves.
This makes it seem as if Apple is blatantly lying to the court in its filing and hoping no one will notice... is that legal? Does lying to the court only get you in trouble if you're on the witness stand and have been sworn in?
The reporting is confusing. The legal filing linked didn’t mention special deal. Page 7 details Apple’s argument on this point, which seems fairly factual. You can search text for “special deal”. Nothing turns up.
The special deal language instead comes from an unlinked declaration from Phil Schiller. It is unclear if this is actually a court filing. It may simply be a document Apple distributed to the media. If anyone can source that quote to an original document I’d appreciate it.
This was never a "negotiation". It's pretty clear from the beginning that both Epic and Apple were writing their emails for public consumption, not to each other. Epic knew Apple wouldn't give in, and Epic wanted to sue Apple from the beginning.
It is somewhat amusing that Tim Sweeney complains that Apple's response came from their legal team when it is pretty obvious his original email was not written in good faith and was obviously written for PR purposes.
"we will understand that Apple is not willing to make the changes necessary to allow us to provide Android customers with the option of choosing their app store and payment processing system."
Did they intend to write iOS there? That's a pretty big typo in such an important email.
> all emails be written assuming that they could be made public
That's not what I meant though. I meant that the emails were making arguments specifically targeted at the public and/or the courts. If you viewed the emails as Epic and Apple having a conversation with each other and trying to negotiate or convince the other, they'd be totally ridiculous. Epic made a jerk cold opening, and Apple gave a pointless lecture in response. This wasn't a conversation, it was a debate. The emails were essentially opening arguments in a court case.
This is such a genius move by Epic / Tim Sweeney. Apple's case hinges on them being consistent with all developers - no special treatment. Apple even says as much in their filing to the court:
"On July 10, Apple responded that "Apple has never allowed this... we strongly believe these rules are vital to the health of the Apple platform and carry enormous benefits for both consumers and developers.""
Except, Apple does allow it. For the WeChat app from China's Tencent:
CNET (2019): WeChat messaging app brings its own 'instant apps' storefront to iPhones and iPads
"This is a big deal because WeChat's catalog contains over one million apps, separately from the iOS App Store. Ordinarily, Apple would strictly prohibit such a practice -- for security reasons at least, if not for platform cohesion -- but if a western company wants to do business in China, concessions must be made."
The former head of App Review for Apple, Phillip Shoemaker, even said this week "WeChat's continued presence on iPhones amounts to a special exception":
Apple's case does not "hinge" on being consistent with all app developers. Every app that Apple distributes could in theory be the result of a one-on-one negotiation.
I mean, Fornite pulling China into this has got to backfire though, right? China is a huge profit center, and apple plays China's game because, well, money. It's like ratting out your older brother and getting beat up in the backyard the next day
No, typically this sort of legal argument goes through because the exception exists; it doesn't matter exactly what the nature of the exception is. Epic's got a solid point: Either Apple does or does not grant exceptions, and this is an example of an exception which Apple granted.
Also notable, from Apple's filing is this tidbit (emphasis mine):
>Over time, in part because of the opportunities Apple made available, Epic grew 9 to a multi-billion dollar enterprise with large investors like the Chinese tech giant Tencent pouring
10 hundreds of millions of dollars into the company.
Why did Apple even mention the "Chinese" connection to Epic? It's not relevant to the case in any way, shape, or form.
This reads to me personally as a shameless attempt to capitalize on current anti-China sentiment. It sounds almost Trumpian in the way it attempts to disparage their opponent, without actually saying anything meaningful.
Yes but Apple has stated that it’s a special program for video subscriptions that other developers can and has joined even before Apple (eg: Canal+). The terms are not public but it looks like they’re made available as an option to developers that have apps in that market. It looks like the discount is available if your app implements all features in the Apple video ecosystem (AirPlay2, Apple TV native app, etc.)
The first part of the filing reads like it was written by Apple's PR people, not their lawyers.
The antitrust issue is tying. Apple may be able to insist on a cut of things you buy via Apple. But products which create their own world in which other non-Apple things can be bought are a separate market. Apple's use of their control over the first class of sales to demand a share of the second is tying a sale in one area to a sale in another. That's not permitted by US or EU antitrust law.
If the US had an Justice Department that wasn't totally out to lunch on antitrust enforcement, they would be. US antitrust law is far stronger in law than in practice. Wikipedia has a good summary of the history.[1]
In the UK or EU, you usually have several choices for Internet or TV service. Their antitrust authorities didn't let them all merge.
I find it really surprising that Apple didn't grant the request given the potential outcome, if Apple loses (however unlikely), ranges from Apple's app store fees being capped to Apple losing their store monopoly to even Apple being broken up. Shareholders are going to be coming after Tim Cook with torches and pitchforks if he could have easily avoided that simply by giving Epic special treatment.
Special treatment may have exposed Apple to even worse antitrust liability. It is clear from their messaging that it is critical that they maintain the appearance of treating all developers the same. Tim Cook heavily emphasized this point in his recent Congressional testimony.
The request was that Apple dismantle its app store and security model and allow 3rd party app stores and sideloading. This is in point two of Epic’s email.
It would be a completely radical shift. Google declined as well.
I disagree. If Apple were to give in to everybody who declared "we've broken our developer agreement, I can haz side letter?", the flood gates would open pretty quickly. It's one thing to negotiate for preferred treatment, but unilaterally breaking the agreement as an opening move? This aggression will not stand, man.
There are, theoretically, the risks you mention, but (and that may be my stock portfolio talking), I don't see it as particularly likely that Epic will win, especially since they've chosen to take Apple and Google on at the same time.
> It's one thing to negotiate for preferred treatment, but unilaterally breaking the agreement as an opening move? This aggression will not stand, man.
If I understand correctly, I think you are getting the timeline wrong. Unless you don't count prior contact attempts as an "opening move".
Ah, true, I was under the mistaken impression that the letter was sent the day Epic broke their agreement, when in fact it was sent several weeks earlier. Still, this was a unilateral breech of the agreement.
So when has the government ever told a private company they had to cap fees unless the company was a regulated natural monopoly like a utility company?
It happens directly quite often, but it happens indirectly a lot more. Every time the government mandates a company does something simple like improving safety they're essentially telling businesses "make less profit by spending more on this thing instead." All regulation is profit capping (in a good way in my opinion, but plenty of people would argue its a bad thing for the government to do).
It would be entirely within the government's regulatory remit to tell Apple (and other companies) that consumers must be allowed to choose which app store they want to use with their devices and Apple would have to make it happen else face significant fines. That's the risk that Apple are taking by not making a deal with Epic.
Or the business raises costs to pass it on to consumers. The government in that case raises the floor - not lowers the ceiling. If all companies in an industry have to follow the same laws, they all can pass the costs to consumers.
It would be entirely within the government's regulatory remit to tell Apple (and other companies)
So the government is now going to tell private companies how to design their products? Can you imagine having to have multiple “stores” on a $35 Roku? Should the Samsung smart TV have multiple stores? Nintendo Switch?
When has the government ever passed a law with regards to technology that gave consumers more choice? DMCA? SOPA? All of the great laws regarding net neutrality? The government trying to pass laws to make encryption that they can’t bypass illegal? Rulings against municipal broadband?
But this time the government is capable of regulating tech.
This doesn't seem like a big deal. I imagine every CEO of such a big company would dare to ask for special treatment from Apple. Not doing so would be a dereliction of duty to their shareholders.
I agree, I'm having a hard time understanding why people are defending Apple ... Epic is one of the few companies who could afford this fight, kudos they initiated it.
I’ve worked for large food manufacturing companies. It is not unusual for the largest customers like Walmart and Target to ask for and receive better deals than everyone else. It’s just like any supply power situation. We had even given a Walmart a “Most favored nation” deal where if anyone were given a better net deal than anyone else, we would be forced to give Walmart the same deal.
I know that calling Epic a customer is a little weird but they really are when you think about it.
Why should epic’s issues with its own products affect programs that embed the unreal engine? When I see an article (like this one) end with that comment it seems like a copy/paste from an Epic press release.
This headline makes it sound like there has been a change of heart, but Tim Sweeney has been a vocal critic of walled gardens like the App Store and the Microsoft Store, well before Fortnite was a success.
The "special deal" here wouldn't have been some sort of fee waiver, it would've been to let Epic open their own store on iOS. In other words, having Apple give up its monopoly on iOS app publishing, just what the current lawsuit intends to achieve. Obviously, they weren't going to get that, but it's worth asking for it before starting a billion dollar lawsuit.
If they are trying to set a precedent in the courts, it makes sense to go after the most winnable case, and then try to use that ruling to win others. So it would not be Android, where alternative app stores and side loading are permitted, and not the consoles, where the manufacturers will argue they are not providing a general-purpose device. iPhone and even more so iPads are the ideal targets for lawsuits that aim to set precedents.
Side note: alternative stores are a pain: installing the F-droid privileged extension for automatic updates requires root access, for instance. Why couldn't that be a setting, like device administrators?
I feel Google is doing the bare minimum to avoid antitrust rulings, which they probably do.
Google views sideloading as their inconvenient but necessary antitrust escape valve, in my view. They don't want people using it, they want it as something to point at and say "not guilty".
Interesting however is the wording of an old version of the Android Market (old name before Play Store came about) developer agreement - the title of 4.5 is labelled "Non-Competition".
I think that title (which has unsurprisingly disappeared from more recent versions) says it all. Sideloading was Google's attempt to avoid an antitrust battle in the early days of Android, as they could say "we are new, anyone can make a store". The trouble is the licensing agreements with OEMs contain all sorts of restrictions, some of which have probably become public over time. Perhaps more will emerge through the epic games lawsuit, as it seems they're going after the restrictions on OEMs. There's many of those they can request through disclosure if they don't have them already!
Yes. I guess they may be trying to show that Apple and Google have a duopoly in the mobile app market. If they win the Apple case, I am sure they will sue Google next, and that would be a much easier lawsuit to win.
"There’s a rationale for this on console where there's enormous investment in hardware, often sold below cost, and marketing campaigns in broad partnership with publishers. But on open platforms, 30 per cent is disproportionate to the cost of the services these stores perform, such as payment processing, download bandwidth, and customer service."[1]
Low margins on hardware definitely does not apply to Apple (they famously have much higher margins on their devices than their competition), and the (paid) App Store exposure doesn't really match "marketing campaigns in broad partnership with publishers" either.
Not saying he's completely right, but I can see his reasoning and I don't think he's a hypocrite in this case.
People keep on saying this, but exclusives are not the same thing as a walled garden.
You can install games on your PC from any source, and there are over a half-dozen good games distributors you can choose to shop from or sell on. And if none of them work, you can also just buy directly from the developer themselves.
If Apple allowed multiple app stores and sideloading on iOS, but pulled in a few exclusives (ie, Apple Arcade) and banned Fortnite from its official store, that would be equivalent to what Epic is doing on the PC with the Epic Store.
And that is exactly what Epic wants Apple to do -- it's a completely consistent position for them to take.
Exactly how many people does Epic have to sue before you'd be satisfied?
It is perfectly fine for Epic to focus on suing the companies that are causing them the most trouble right now. Given their relative size compared to these companies, it would be stupid for them to take on everyone at once. They don't have the resources to sue every major player in the entire games industry.
Epic has been very consistent about wanting the % cut lowered industry wide. It's silly to try and depict the Epic Games Store as malicious: Like it or not, developers keep more of their revenue on that store due to the 12% cut, and if other storefront operators don't like that they can lower their cut. When you choose a storefront as a developer you're choosing who to pay off in exchange for access to their platform and customers, it's that simple.
"out of the goodness of their heart" is also a silly way to characterize this positively or negatively: They want a chance to compete with Apple by offering lower costs in exchange for not offering the same feature set as Apple, just like how the EGS on Windows does not offer the same feature set as Steam. They believe developers will pick them due to the lower cut, but that's something the market would decide. Right now the market can't decide, because Apple has decided to prohibit competition.
Incidentally Epic made a public promise that if Apple lowered the cut, Apple Pay users would get the same Fortnite discount that people paying directly get.
How is their game store a walled garden? It can be installed alongside others on the same hardware. Even their exclusivity agreements are time limited.
> However, the legal question of having a monopoly on publishing for a game console has been settled ages ago, and the platform owners won.
I don't believe it has, and I don't believe they do.
The only lawsuit of this nature that I'm aware of is Atari v. Nintendo [1]. All that lawsuit established was that
- It isn't fair use to violate copyright law in the process of bypassing mechanisms used to maintain the monopoly
- While it might be copyright misuse to create those mechanisms establishing a monopoly in the first place (undecided), the court isn't going to grant you a win when you got in the position you did by lying to the government to steal code.
Notably (as far as I can tell) it established nothing whatsoever about antitrust law, which is what is at issue in this case and presumably what would be at issue in a similar case related to consoles.
Sega v Accolade also seems relevant here, and held that reverse engineering to create unlicensed Sega Genesis games was fair use and thus permissible (though in a later settlement, Accolade did become a licensed developer).
Are they abusing market power though? 30% seems to be the standard rate for online stores. Google and Apple do it. Steam is 30%. And it’s been report that Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo also take a 30% cut. Physical store such as GameStop, Best Buy, and Walmart take 30% too.
Epic only takes 12% which is great, but they’re also locking up games in exclusive deals which I think is way worse.
They’re also making a late push in a tight market without real differentiation (the exclusives like you said) so from a market standpoint it’s one of the last options. There’s legitimately no other reason to have that store installed other than having been forced to, so giving people a monetary break is kinda the least you could do.
To me the difference is when it comes to IAP/subscriptions.
Steam / Play Store both allow the distributor of an app to let the user subscribe without going through their payment processing. Apple does not. That means Apple is taking a cut of services they are not helping to deliver.
Apple takes 30% for in-app sales. People already have the app, there is no discovery or trust benefit. The App Store is awful for discovery anyway. You think we need the App Store to discover the Facebook app, Amazon app, Epic app? These apps spread by network effects, not discovery in the store.
Users pay for the hardware platform.
I find games for the first time with the Epic Store. Market share isn’t really super relevant, they are the newest entry in the market.
Except they’re being new and without market share is exactly why they’re cheaper. Epic isn’t running an altruistic enterprise here.
It was telling that after circumventing Apple’s 30%, they didn’t offer their goods 30% cheaper - or even 18% cheaper (reflective of the 12% they think is “fair” in their own store), they made it 10% cheaper for the user, and kept 8% more for themselves than other developers on their own Epic platform would get.
Absolutely the App Store does a lot of discovery - just ask anyone what being a featured app does.
I find plenty of apps by searching.
Anyone whiteknighting for epic here is going to be disappointed in 5 years when they’re either successful with their store and raking other devs over the coals or they’ve shut their store down completely.
I think Apple is probably on the wrong side of anti-trust law on this, but there is certainly a trust benefit (and UX benefit) to a unified payment platform.
The history of mobile/online payments is littered with instances of users being confused/defrauded.
> Users pay for the hardware platform.
This isn't really relevant. Not only is an iPhone worthless without software, but subsidization of hardware by services is very common.
Isn’t Visa/MasterCard the unified payment platform?
Obviously the iPhone is worthless without software, except it comes with a 1k price tag. Part of that is for the OS. The hardware certainly doesn’t cost that much (comparable offerings from hardware-only manufacturers cost less). This is not a case where the hardware cost is subsidized. Numbers from various sources suggest the iPhone sells for triple the cost of manufacturing.
You’re still neglecting ongoing operational costs, which are neither hardware nor R&D.
But it still doesn’t matter, Apple is profitable, everyone knows that already. It is legal to be profitable, and it is legal to have parts of your business subsidize other parts.
What might not be legal is using a dominant market position to force out competitors.
If you read Apple's filing, they actually claim it's impossible to separate distribution from payment processing. I mean, it's as if Apple have never heard of Stripe or PayPal.
Some of that filing is so lousy & so easily proven false, it's starting to look like Apple could lose this one hard.
That's a pretty big oversimplification of their argument and antitrust law usually isn't so cut and dried.
What they're saying is that in the market for product A, if sales of product A are usually bundled with product B, then the courts view product A and B as one product sold together. The fact that product B might be sold separately in other markets doesn't change the facts and circumstances as they pertain to product A's market.
The precedent they cite in Rick-Mik Enters., Inc. v. Equilon Enters. LLC demonstrates an example of this, where credit card processing services are typically bundled with sales of gas station franchises, and therefore in the market of "gas station franchise sales", "credit card processing services" were not considered a separate product even though you can obviously purchase "credit card processing services" separately in other markets.
While I don't know if this particular argument will hold up in court, it's not "so lousy & so easily proven false" either.
It's for the access to Apple's consumers. I refuse to buy any app/subscription outside App Store because I have had a terrible experience with companies like Blinkist.
A physical store allows you to immediately deliver a physical good to a local buyer, which you could not do without a local store.
Every person distributing an app can access any potential buyer of digital goods directly via their own servers, which basically every app creator has already.
30% is only the standard because Apple set it so high. All of the others just copied them - "Apple charges 30% so we will look reasonable doing the same". It's basically the figure you can get away with if developers have to publish in your store.
When developers don't have to publish in your store, you have to lower your cut:
That is why Microsoft and Apple are so keen on pushing the Mac/Windows stores, and on making running unsigned code a huge pain in the arse. They want that sweet sweet 30% cut on desktop too.
The Mac App Store is 3%. Probably a lot closer to the real cost, when Apple has to be competitive (for now, I see it going MAS-only soon) with the ability to sell your own apps.
You could take an interpretation that big players getting a different rate than small players isn't special treatment but normal procedure, so a big player not being given the big player rate is the special treatment. The problem with any language dealing with equality is that there are different ways to define equal and very specific definitions can result in different results. This is also true for the concept of random and there is even a mathematical paradox related to this (which is great for stripping off all the baggage that real world examples bring with them).
Whoever cut that sweetheart deal to Amazon is in so much trouble right now, career-wise.
This is simply not going to happen for everybody else though. Apple will not forego billions of dollars in revenue for "fairness", "etchics" or whatever. This is the company which makes their product in Chinese sweatshops and benefits from Uyghur slave labor. They couldn't care less about "fairness".
That's because there's jury and in the US in some states you don't even need legal education to be a judge so in general it's a good practice to translate technical terms into laymen and 5th grader language, if you actually want to convince them about your point.
Naturally lawyers exaggerate or manipulate the words ... they're not there to gain justice (although that's their intended purpose) but they're paid to get the decision.
You don't need a legal education to be a judge? Very interesting. Could you give some more information about this. Are judges elected or bureaucrats? How does someone become a judge? What parts of the US have this system?
Indeed.
I have no sympathy for either side - but this analogy is ridiculous.
Mainly as the counter argument is "Well the only reason our players have to enter your store at all, is because you make them. We'd be perfectly happy if you could let them shop with us in our store - and then you wouldn't have to worry about the shoplifting in yours"
Now I totally understand why Apple have piled up a huge mountain of cash and never spent a dime. They are going to accept anyone's challenge to court if necessary and use their 200M USD financial power to do whatever they can to keep the status quo at any price. I sincerely don't believe we as customers can win this one, fixing Apple (as we talk about here) would be something much bigger than what had been done to Microsoft in the 90s.
You downvoted me with such condescending tone that borders an ad hominem because you did read too much on what I said and left zero space for debate. You must be proud.
If you think I’m wrong, feel free to present an argument that Apple has saved $200 billion in cash to fight court cases, and that they have in some way neglected to spend on priorities to fund this. Your response was ad hominem.
I used a strong tone because you presented a very strong conclusion that I don’t believe to be supported by evidence. You linked a fact you don’t understand (Apple’s cash pile) to the topic de jour (Apple’s new court case). I really do think this is a starting point to conspiratorial thinking: grand conclusions on the basis of a couple ideas. Maybe the way I warned you wasn’t likely to succeed, but I meant it completely sincerely.
Customers don't care about this lol. This creates a worse experience for customers if anything and the App Store in no way cannot be described as a monopoly
https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/129691854162779341...
> Apple's statement is misleading. You can read my email in Apple's filing, which is publicly available. I specifically said in Epic's request to the Apple execs, "We hope that Apple will also make these options equally available to all iOS developers..."