What in god's name is with all the bootlickers in this thread? I have no love for Apple or Epic. But if this lawsuit leads to better treatment of third-party developers on the platform and Apple not being able to arbitrarily control what apps consumers get to download, I don't see why Epic is being painted as the "bad guy" by so many people here. Apple has been behaving in crazy anti-competitive ways (just look at how they historically treated any developer that dared make an app that competed with their own) for years now. It's time for the hammer to fall.
Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
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Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#92Apple is a monopoly. When Microsoft was investigated and fined for anti-trust behaviors, it hasn't engaged in this level of abuse.
I don't know if you remember the 90s, but at the time MS was the ONLY monopoly in personal computing. Intel was the other big force, but even they had competition on AMD. All other companies had not even a slim of hope of controlling the ecosystem like MS had. Now we have Apple, but you still can buy Google devices and do whatever you want outside their walled garden.
I think its really important the narrative stays clear concerning this: Its never been about users having choice (because users do have choice): Its about Developers not having a choice.
Refusing to release an iOS app for your web application/game/etc is generally a death sentence, so much so that oftentimes you see new services release as "Get it on the iOS app store, Android coming soon."
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Microsoft takes 30% on Xbox plus its much more expensive to develop and publish on that platform overall. Neither Tinder nor Spotify will transfer any savings to the end users. Spotify has been ramping their sub costs considerably my sub went up by like 150% in the UK over the past 3-4 years. Tinder employs discriminatory pricing by charging certain genders, age groups and sexual orientations more for their premium s…
To clarify, these companies are certainly not absolved of doing the same exact thing, but the current news isn't about them, it's about Apple, and they're going to make good use of that
These are all opportunistic companies that don’t care about consumers which have the same or worse overall practices than Apple.
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
With no skin in the game, I could just as easily counter with: Supporting Apple in this fight is just setting a dangerous precedent that big players should be able to just intimidate platform developers into giving them whatever terms they want. Don't do it. Again I don't really have a concrete view but a lot of these discussions tend to boil down to preference against one party or the other and not objectively looki…
It’s a flawed argument, developers don’t come saying “we’ll give you 30% of our revenue if you let us build on your platform”. If they don’t like the terms they can simply choose to not develop there.
Or they can do what they're currently doing.
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you reconcile this opinion with the glaringly obvious counter that Apple swings its weight around in exactly that fashion ?
A company should have the right to enforce the terms for its own platform.
Not if they're anti-competitive, like selectively using private APIs or forcing developers to use unrelated services (i.e. Apple payment processors).
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#96Super glad I cut all ties with Apple a few years back. They make great products for my parents, but they are increasingly hostile toward developers and tech savvy users. I made a free mobile game that's in both the iOS and Play store, and after I realized the $99 fee is not just a one time fee but a recurring fee to keep the app in the store, well of course I let my developer account lapse. I'm not a charity, and it'…
I’m also unsure how you can possess the skills to build an entire app and not also posses the skills to read the “annual fee” part of the developer program cost. Not rooting for Apple, but the pretentiousness in the “I’m not a charity” part seemed far removed from the humbleness required to be unintentionally illiterate.
I was under the impression that the fee was only annual if you wanted to continue developing. I didn't know the fee was also tied to whether or not your existing apps would be taken down. Clearly, this is confusing to other people as well: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5271418/will-my-app-stay...
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#97Remember this whenever you hear someone say their company is too big to fail when dealing with the likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google and others: no company is too big to fail.
Just as important: they are companies, not people. We (or perhaps: some of us) fall for the idea to personify the companies or brands that we use(d) because that is what some of the products might mean to use while we use them. But it's still products and companies, and our interaction is often limited to legal, retail and marketing.
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#98Supporting Epic in this fight is just setting a dangerous precedent that big players should be able to just intimidate platform owners into giving them whatever terms they want. Don’t do it.
Epic is still the under dog here. They’re nothing compared to Apple. Even if this is all in Epic’s selfish best interest, that doesn’t matter if their interest is more aligned with smaller app developers’ interests. The balance of power is still shifted well towards Apple.
Weeeeell.....yes, except that Epic has Tencent behind their back, and while Apple is still bigger, Tencent isn't that far behind.
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#99I gotta say I really thought Epic would blink and comply. I guess I underestimated their resolve. It’s not like their lawsuit wouldn’t continue if they put Fortnite back in the App Store.
It was very obvious that the response from Apple was quite expected so I don't understand why there would be any blinking going on.
Re: Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
A company should have the right to enforce the terms for its own platform.
No, I think what they mean is that for instance, Apple Music is on Android, but Apple takes payments through its own platform, not through Google Play, therefore denying Google their 30% cut on apple music payments. Many smaller companies are not able to negotiate the same thing.
Oh I didn’t know. I guess supporting Epic means that kind of behavior will just continue if they win...