> Before Apple's announcement, Epic said the iPhone maker had twice rejected documents the video-game publisher submitted to launch the Epic Games Store because the design of certain buttons and labels was similar to those used by its App Store.
This is illegal and I hope it leads to Apple being disallowed to still insert itself into the distribution process at all, which should’ve been the case from the start.
It’s kinda strange to see so many people taking Epic’s account here at face value given they’ve been fined multiple times in multiple countries over their existing store (Fortnite). For example:
> The FTC says Fortnite's "counterintuitive, inconsistent, and confusing button configuration led players to incur unwanted charges based on the press of a single button."
> Because of those design tricks, the regulator says it found instances where players were charged while attempting to wake the game from sleep mode, while the game was in a loading screen, or by pressing an adjacent button while attempting simply to preview an item.
> "These tactics led to hundreds of millions of dollars in unauthorized charges for consumers," the FTC said.
> Some parents complained that their children had racked up hundreds of dollars in charges before they realized Epic had charged their credit card without their consent. Accounts who disputed unauthorized transactions on their credit cards often had their entire accounts locked, giving customers no access to content that they had willingly paid for.
Epic‘s no saint, but I don’t expect them to outright lie about something they’ll likely present to officials. Especially considering that the alleged behavior is exactly in line with what Apple has been doing for a long time.
I mean, so far what we've got is mostly some statements on Twitter. Given how much of this fight has been waged in the media, I put a lot less faith in that than you do.
If there's some actual filings with the EU about this somewhere I'd definitely be interested to read them. If Apple's actually rejecting this application because "they used standard platform buttons in a standard platform way", then yeah, nail them to the wall.
I'm just not to ready to jump to "nail them to the wall" based on a company with a history of dark patterns in their UI designs claiming on Twitter that Apple took issue with their UI designs.
> If Apple's actually rejecting this application because "they used standard platform buttons in a standard platform way", then yeah, nail them to the wall.
Apple has publicly commented that the buttons are in fact the reason for the rejection.
“Apple has since told AppleInsider on Friday that it has approved Epic's marketplace app. It has also asked Epic to fix the buttons in a future submission of the app for review.”
By your very words and the article, the buttons "are in fact the reason for the rejection", except for now, when they weren't, because it was approved?
When faced with evidence of their dishonesty, to the extent of govt-enforced correction, the typical HN reader: they're no saint, but i certainly don't expect dishonesty.
> Because of those design tricks, the regulator says it found instances where players were charged while [...] pressing an adjacent button while attempting simply to preview an item
This kind of deliberately vague phrasing makes me immediately suspicious. This 'button adjacent to the preview button' - that wouldn't happen to be the buy button, would it?
This is illegal and I hope it leads to Apple being disallowed to still insert itself into the distribution process at all, which should’ve been the case from the start.