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Epic vs. Apple: Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for TRO [pdf]

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71–80 of 121 posts

Re: Epic vs. Apple: Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for TRO [pdf]

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point is that competition will prevent them from doing that. And it worked: in response to Epic's lower rates, Steam also cut their rates. If Epic raises the rate to 30% they'll be more expensive than Steam, and won't be able to compete.

I just checked and Fornite is not available on Steam. So all that will happen is that certain games will exist only in one store and not be subject to competition. Or they will secretly sell your data to third parties which Apple won't do.

Fortnite is not required to be on Steam for there to be competition in the game store marketplace. As a game developer on PC, if you don't like Valve, you can switch to Epic, regardless of whether Fortnite is there or not — and Valve has no policies prohibiting you from doing so if you want to (unlike iOS, where Apple prohibits alternate game stores). You might sell fewer games because it's less popular, but that's not due to any anticompetitive action on Valve's part — and it may not matter that you sell fewer games, because Epic may pay you enough for exclusivity that you make up the difference anyway. The "injury" that Epic is trying to prove with Apple is that game developers are injured by lost sales due to Apple's policies, or lost revenue due to Apple's cut, and that this is due to Apple's anticompetitive policies that (literally do) prohibit competing stores from existing and offering developers an alternative. Game developers are not injured — at least, not in the terms usually used in antitrust cases — by Fortnite only existing on the Epic store and not on Steam.

You might argue that consumers are somehow injured by Fortnite existing on the Epic store but not on Steam. But I think that's pretty hard to prove, at least under existing antitrust law: Fortnite is free, and its microtransactions are not particularly more expensive than competitors, and if you don't want to play Fortnite because you don't like the Epic store for some reason, there are dozens of competing battle royale shooters on every platform Fortnite runs on (and, now, even platforms Fortnite doesn't run on). Where is the lack of competition? Or the injury?

Epic's case centers on injury not to consumers, but to developers. That case is easier to make, and it's the case they care about because they operate a game store that doesn't exist on iOS due to Apple's policies — and a game engine business that operates on a 5% revenue share model, which naturally would increase its profits if Apple stopped taking a 30% tithe from developer revenues in the first place. They're perfectly willing to sacrifice Fortnite Mobile, a comparatively small amount of revenue, temporarily if it gets their other business streams more income in the future.

Re: Epic vs. Apple: Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for TRO [pdf]

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The walled garden is not what protects your email, 2FA SMSes or bank details. The OS sandboxing and permissions system do that. The two are often conflated, but the two concerns are orthogonal really. Heck, you could easily imagine a system where software distributed outside the app store can only access a subset of perms if security is such a concern, and that'd still be less anti-competitive

Due to the way iOS works (dynamic dispatch) private APIs can only be prevented through an App Store review process. And many of those APIs can be used to extract enough information to fingerprint the device, determine your location or steal your data e.g. accessing the list of WiFi networks or browser history. So no. The two concerns are very much related.

You could easily argue that Apple has built an OS that is deeply broken and insecure if they aren't able to technically enforce permissions of apps to do certain things. Virtually any other OS has that capability.

Re: Epic vs. Apple: Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for TRO [pdf]

#73
post #62
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS is a major cost to develop that's given away for free, continually invested in, advanced, developed & updated. Apple is allowed to have more than one business model on the platform they built, which was their primary focus that reshaped the company at a great opportunity cost to their other businesses. Ultimately the Company bet paid off & became successful against a number of incumbents who lost fortunes trying…

> iOS is a major cost to develop that's given away for free How is it given for free, you pay for it when you buy the phone.

You dont just get the current OS that's on the phone, but also the upcoming ones for the next 5-6 years[0] for free. A phone bought in 2015 still gets updates.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/eS3ifSC.jpg

Re: Epic vs. Apple: Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for TRO [pdf]

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This appears to be the first dispute where Apple aggressively retaliated in unrelated areas of business.

> This appears to be the first dispute where Apple aggressively retaliated in unrelated areas of business. But it's also the first publish dispute where someone purposely put in code to activate alternative payment options and broke the rules. Apple is setting an example of epic. Don't break the rules.

No it's not https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/netflix-itunes-2/

Re: Epic vs. Apple: Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for TRO [pdf]

#75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be curious how you plan to prevent access to Apple's private APIs in Objective-C, which uses dynamic dispatching, without breaking existing code. I am sure Apple would love to know how you've managed to solve this.

sign existing code.

They do, this is an argument about how they decide when it is OK to sign that code.

Re: Epic vs. Apple: Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for TRO [pdf]

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This appears to be the first dispute where Apple aggressively retaliated in unrelated areas of business. But it's also the first publish dispute where someone purposely put in code to activate alternative payment options and broke the rules. Apple is setting an example of epic. Don't break the rules.

No it's not https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/netflix-itunes-2/

Yes it is, Netflix didn't hide code and then later enable it to support another payment option inside their app. They tried to redirect users to a website when signing up for premium.

What Epic did was hide code and later enable the feature.

Re: Epic vs. Apple: Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for TRO [pdf]

#77
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...Epic Games moves this Court to allow it to access Apple’s platform for free while it makes money on each purchase made on the same platform. While the Court anticipates experts will opine that Apple’s 30 percent take is anti-competitive, the Court doubts that an expert would suggest a zero percent alternative. Not even Epic Games gives away its products for free..." Apple is arguing as if accessing their platform…

It being a walled garden is the only way I’m willing to trust it for accessing all my account recovery emails, my 2FA SMSes, my bank details, and the sensor package that can listen to everything I do while GPS tracking me and monitoring my heart rate and gaze if I happen to be holding it where I can see the screen. Of course, that doesn’t mean I like being stuck with an American cultural hegemony that says sexual con…

Your stance seems nonsensical to me, given the fact that Epic was clearly able to sneak something that violates the rules past Apple's review process.

It's clearly not possible for Apple to actually check all functionality of every app, particularly as it's so easy to hide it or to put it in an embedded web view.

In this case, Epic managed to put an alternative payment method in - but they are a trusted brand, so there's no real security issue overall.

But could some other developer do the same thing and harvest payment details? Of course.

Re: Epic vs. Apple: Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for TRO [pdf]

#78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why can't Epic (or any other company) provide you that option with a 42% premium (to cover Apple's 30% cut) and allow users to buy direct from them? Then if you wish to trust Apple more with your card details, you can pay more for the privelege. Or you can save some money, but potentially increase your risk by going direct. I've always hated that Apple seem to think they know better than anyone else; you can't do…

I mean, that’s exactly why I have an Apple device. No, wait, not that I’m stupid. Though I’m sure some people would call me that. It’s that they make the decisions for me. I’m specifically paying a premium to delegate the responsibility for making those decisions to them. I spent years running Nexus devices (since before they were Nexus... still have my ADP1 in a drawer) on Cyanogenmod and LineageOS. At some point I…

But those aren't mutually exclusive. You can stay in the walled garden if you wish, and people who are comfortable with the risk can go outside. Choice; something Apple thinks its users are incapable of making sensibly.

Re: Epic vs. Apple: Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for TRO [pdf]

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The walled garden is not what protects your email, 2FA SMSes or bank details. The OS sandboxing and permissions system do that. The two are often conflated, but the two concerns are orthogonal really. Heck, you could easily imagine a system where software distributed outside the app store can only access a subset of perms if security is such a concern, and that'd still be less anti-competitive

Due to the way iOS works (dynamic dispatch) private APIs can only be prevented through an App Store review process. And many of those APIs can be used to extract enough information to fingerprint the device, determine your location or steal your data e.g. accessing the list of WiFi networks or browser history. So no. The two concerns are very much related.

they are related because apple plugged one process into the other.

but there is nothing intrinsic to their operation that requires it, and apple could un-plug it.

this is like apple arguing that IE is central to the fabric of windows, and can't be removed during the european antitrust suit.

it's dishonest, but apple will likely make the same claim.

Re: Epic vs. Apple: Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Motion for TRO [pdf]

#80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/netflix-itunes-2/

Yes it is, Netflix didn't hide code and then later enable it to support another payment option inside their app. They tried to redirect users to a website when signing up for premium. What Epic did was hide code and later enable the feature.

Netflix hid code and later enabled it to redirect users to a non-Apple payment method. Epic hid code and later enabled it to redirect users to a non-Apple payment method. They did the exact same thing.
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