Apple, Epic, and the App Store • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#351

Post by strictnein » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

ericmay wrote: post #280

danShumway wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to heavy push back against both-sides-isms here. > I think Epic's real motivation here is to run their own App Store Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We want multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this position had been really clear, but maybe we haven't been clear enough. For the record, we want there to be multiple app stores on iOS. > build a bigger moat and get the profits…

> Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We want multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this position had been really clear, maybe we haven't been clear enough though. Right, and the rest of us don't want that, and I also don't want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's rules. You want another option of App Stores because you want don't want to pay for the user base that Apple created and…

No corporation should ever have your "complete trust", because they do not value you above themselves.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#352

Post by cromwellian » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

"But Apple needs to fund the App Store. XCode, payment processing, reviewers, it all costs money". Yes, very little in comparison. Apple made $50 billion in revenue from the App Store in 2019. $50 BILLION. The data centers costs to serve up this are miniscule in comparison. Apple could build 50 datacenters PER YEAR EVERY YEAR for that revenue.

Reviewers? A staff of 10,000 fulltime reviewers paid $200k per year would cost $2 billion.

Sorry, I'm not buying this excuse. OSX/iOS is free for every piece of HW, and it surely has much much larger costs to staff.

A $1250 iPhone had a $450 cost to make, giving Apple a staggering 64% gross margin, and $800 gross profit.

The costs to run the Apple store should be included as a sunk platform cost of the phone just like OSX. The cost to run the store is marginal. The cost to serve up an additional developer app, to review an additional app, and to let someone buy one, is an insignificant fraction.

It should be free like the Web, or some extremely low cost to cover CC processing fees (~3%) and electricity to keep the lights on.

I'm shocked at the number of apologists who think this 30% cut is somehow necessary for poor little Apple, with a hole in the pocket, with living on their spare change. It's egregious and unnecessary, and exists for one reason only: rent-seeking behavior. iPhones are reaching saturation, and Apple can either find ways to raise the price of the phone even more, lower the costs more, or increase service revenues, in order to keep their stock going up.

That's why you see focus on service revenues, because they can't really lower costs much to make the devices, and they can't really increase the price much more.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#353

Post by jonny_eh » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

MR4D wrote: post #309

danShumway wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to heavy push back against both-sides-isms here. > I think Epic's real motivation here is to run their own App Store Yeah, you're right. That is the outcome that we want. We want multiple stores on iOS. I thought advocates for this position had been really clear, but maybe we haven't been clear enough. For the record, we want there to be multiple app stores on iOS. > build a bigger moat and get the profits…

> We want multiple stores on iOS. No no no no no no!!!!!! It's this type of thinking that has caused me to have more freaking messaging and video apps on my phone so I can talk to everyone: Zoom, Skype, Meet, Meetings, Facetime, Messenger, Chime,...etc, etc. etc. NO. I ABSOLUTELY do not want that. Freaking nightmare. When that happens I ditch my iPhone and buy a flip phone. Seriously - stop the insanity. There is no…

> NO. I ABSOLUTELY do not want that. Freaking nightmare.

That's a bit extreme. It's less of a nightmare, and more of an annoyance, that is paid in exchange for competition and innovation.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#354

Post by wayneftw » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

izacus wrote: post #315

tc wrote: post #41

Here's the thing. Even if you're OK with Apple (or whoever) controlling what you can run on your computers, this is a centralization of power that will be co-opted. Let's say that Australia wants to ban consumer encryption. This would currently be difficult to enforce for PC software. But on mobile, this is easy. Just make Apple and Google enforce it! Make them ban such apps from their stores. Now you've achieved per…

Apple already actively censors political content in apps and actively works with Chinese government to censor content on Chinese AppStore. A private company is already put themselves in plate to control software content that reaches millions of people without those people having the ability to choose anything else on their pocket computers.

> Apple already actively censors political content in apps...

This is true, which is why I surprised the other day when I found this app called "BLMovement" when I was looking around to see if anyone was making a completely distasteful joke...

https://apps.apple.com/uy/app/blmovement/id1517754969

As a "resource directory", it's not purely political but surely it skirts the line.

I'm certain that if some political movement had popular support Apple would forget the rules though.

(Although, I doubt they'd let this same app in the store if it was called AntifaMovement, QAnonMovement or NationalSocialistMovement.)

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#355

Post by kelnos » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

tomc1985 wrote: post #333

kelnos wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Multiple launchers is NOT ideal. Absolutely agreed, but consider what would happen if only one of those game stores you mention were allowed to be installed on your gaming PC. Then you'd have to go through a single gatekeeper, and I bet you a bunch of the games you like just wouldn't be available at all, because they'd either have been capriciously rejected, or because their developers can't make the terms work to…

You phrase this as an either/or proposition... either 1 app store with its gatekeepers and rules (and frankly, the Steam supremacy was a good king to live under...) The real answer is neither. Fuck all these proprietary launchers and app stores. There are other answers.... personally I feel like these platforms need to be run and controlled by a nonprofit, with a charter that holds customers' and business' needs equa…

With Apple's ecosystem, it is an either/or proposition. Thy don't allow third-party stores, period, so I don't see how my comparison is inadequate.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#356

Post by jonny_eh » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

tomc1985 wrote: post #297

kartayyar wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the whole objection to mutiple app stores. Instead of clicking icon A, I click icon B and if I get a cheaper game, all power to Epic. I don't spend time in an app store. I spend time playing the game.

So I recently built a living room gaming PC. Installed Steam, Epic Store, GOG, Origin, XBOX, Rockstar Social Club, even Twitch. Pretty much anything where I have a library of games. And let me tell you, what a pain in the ass it is! I keep all the games organized in Playnite. If I try to launch Epic games from Playnite, most of the time nothing happens. So I start the epic client and... oh look, it logged me out agai…

No one wants multiple launchers, people want multiple stores. They're very different.

Once the app is installed, it should be easy to start the app.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#357

Post by tveita » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

y7 wrote: post #323

enragedcacti wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...just don't use other app stores? Honest question, what do you lose by other people having the option?

Because it leads to fragmentation. If developers have a choice of app stores, then users have to install ALL app stores if they want access to the entire market. This happened with streaming services as well: when Netflix was the only prominent one, only that subscription was enough. Now you also need Amazon, Hulu, etc.

Apple could easily offer good enough terms on their app store that app developers would use them by free choice.

Then you could personally keep using a single app store and enjoy the non-monopolistic prices.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#358

Post by kmeisthax » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

easton wrote: post #213

johncolanduoni wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part of that argument I have trouble with is the “until all oven manufacturer were into the game” part. Do you have an example where an entire class of computer hardware became impossible to buy without firmware restrictions? This alarm bell has been sounded as “The War on General Purpose Computing” for over a decade for different pieces of hardware (laptops, desktops, routers, phones, etc.) but it still hasn’t r…

Game consoles, right? Back in the day things like the Commodore were often sold as game systems and computers (the NES wasn’t but you could still run unlicensed software). Nowadays, good luck running something on your PS4/Switch that the company didn’t approve (unless you have a hackable switch I guess, but that’s extremely fiddly).

The NES could not run unlicensed software. In fact, the NES arguably invented the App Store licensing model. Every console (save for the toploaders) has a lockout chip that resets the CPU every second or so unless it's able to exchange encrypted data with a companion lockout chip in the cartridge. Nintendo used this to "protect" the US gaming market from games they didn't approve of.

Technically, the Family Computer (Famicom) could run unlicensed software. It even had a BASIC interpreter and a keyboard controller. Nintendo realized their mistake very quickly, however, which is why the NES has a lockout chip and the disk add-on for the Famicom also locked out third-party disks. (Note that part of the system was the ability to buy blank disks and pay to download games onto them via a Disk Writer kiosk, hence why the disks were proprietary, not just the games.) A number of game developers in Japan found that to be a bit of a shock, from what I've heard.

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#359

Post by bttrfl » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

cromwellian wrote: post #352

"But Apple needs to fund the App Store. XCode, payment processing, reviewers, it all costs money". Yes, very little in comparison. Apple made $50 billion in revenue from the App Store in 2019. $50 BILLION. The data centers costs to serve up this are miniscule in comparison. Apple could build 50 datacenters PER YEAR EVERY YEAR for that revenue. Reviewers? A staff of 10,000 fulltime reviewers paid $200k per year would…

Following your logic, Fortnite's add-ons should clearly be free since the cost to make and sell them is minuscule in comparison to 400M Epic made in April alone [0].

[0] https://venturebeat.com/2020/06/15/epic-games-shareholders-s...

Re: Apple, Epic, and the App Store

#360

Post by kelnos » Mon, Aug 17, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

jdminhbg wrote: post #328

kelnos wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't own an iPhone in large part because I cannot install an alternative app store or install non-Apple approved apps. > Right, and the rest of us don't want that, and I also don't want games or apps that don't adhere to Apple's rules. Why do you care? If you don't want to install a third-party app store, then don't. The games available on Apple's store will continue to adhere to Apple's rules, and if you want tha…

> Why do you care? If you don't want to install a third-party app store, then don't. The games available on Apple's store will continue to adhere to Apple's rules, and if you want that curation, you still get it. Apple users care because if non-App Store distribution methods are banned, then developers are forced to go through Apple's process to get access to them. You can see complaints around this thread about how…

If Apple doesn't want competition, maybe they should address the reasons why people want that competition. If the App Store's terms and review policies were attractive to these kinds of developers, they wouldn't push so hard to have their own store.

And if the only policies that these developers had to legitimately complain about were the ones that protect users, they'd be laughed out of town. But that doesn't seem to be the case.