Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 614 posts

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#551

Post by yazaddaruvala »

stale2002 wrote: post #536
yazaddaruvala wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All products even with ownership come with rules and regulations. Houses can’t be arbitrarily changed. Cars have governors. Scissors shouldn’t be run with. Ownership of an iPhone is not different. It just has special rules attached. If you don’t mind breaking the warranty, please jailbreak your iPhone and install whatever apps you’d prefer.

The US courts have consistently held that it is perfectly legal to do anything to your privated owned things that are not public. Your house example is wrong, because that has public viewing concerns on a plot of land. And your car example is incorrect. I could make any changes at all to a car, that is not put on public roads. That has nothing to do with the manufacturer putting restrictions on your car.

iPhones are put on “public” internet and therefore is restricted for the safety of the user and the safety of society.

If you want to cherry pick arguments we can do this all day. The reality is Apple is just doing what every manufacturer has done for millennia!

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#552

Post by Razengan »

simion314 wrote: post #455
Fnoord wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is that Epic pays companies a sack of money to have exclusive right for a title, to have it temporarily only available on EGS. I don't like to be bound to any launcher or store. Apple doesn't force you to only use their own launcher; only on their own platform, or if you use their platform to complete the sale (which sounds as odd as it is).

Apple is even worse: - as a developer you don't get "a sack of money" but you get a 30% tax (larger then Epic - as a user you don't get free games, discounts or the option to wait for the exclusivity to expire. On top of that you will never(probably) have the option to touch the game files and mod it.

This is the same as with consoles, and people are fine with it.

The App Store also pays out more revenue to developers than other stores, a major reason being that you can literally access all the users on iOS by publishing on just one store.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#553

Post by yazaddaruvala »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #441
sem000 wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! HN is a small subset of Apple customers. The largest piece of the pie don’t care about any of this stuff besides that it works. I specifically bought Apple vs Android for these reasons. I run my life and business form my phone, I trust Apple to provide me with a working experience and support when needed. Imagine having to use another App Store outside Apples control, and an app causes my phone to crash. Who…

Why is this any different from Apple saying that you can't download other software on your Macbook, unless you pay Apple 30% and buy it from their exclusive store?

IMO Apple has the right to create a feature limited tool.

However, I would not purchase such a MacBook Pro. I would purchase such a MacBook or iPhone though.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#554

Post by danbolt »

canofbars wrote: post #337
danbolt wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We better start launching apps for Pinephones and asking MNT Research to make a phone, then.

The simple solution to this is a law requiring that all general purpose computing devices (Lets define this as something that the user can install and run programs on) must provide a feature to run unauthenticated 3rd party software. Android, Windows and Linux already allow this and macOS used to. IMO this should extend to game consoles too. You should be able to run homebrew games and tools on a console.

I feel like this would be an easier sell for me if there didn't exist any competitor devices wherein you could run unauthenticated 3rd party software. As a consumer you have the option to purchase those devices instead or even consider reverse-engineering the locked-down product.

> IMO this should extend to game consoles too. You should be able to run homebrew games and tools on a console.

That argument there appeals to me emotionally a lot more though, I will admit! It's easy to admire Commodore 64 programmers before my time, or when I wrote Xbox 360 games using XNA in university.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#555

Post by Razengan »

beaner wrote: post #487
donor20 wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this. I pretty happily try out subscription apps on iOS (which I rarely to never do online). Why? It's darn easy to cancel. I get a reminder in advance even. This contrasts in my experience with nearly EVERY other auto-billing approach out there. The time I sometimes spend calling people to cancel stuff (that I could sign up for online) is ridiculous. Another nice touch that builds trust. I once deleted an ap…

Apple once let somebody hack my account and purchase the same $20 app 15 times. When I complained, they ignored me. When I charged back the purchases, they canceled my Apple account. Purchasing the same app more than once on the same device shouldn't even be possible. This was back in 2011, but... definitely didn't build trust. But you guys aren't arguing the actual point anyway. The question is whether the forced ap…

> When I complained, they ignored me. When I charged back the purchases, they canceled my Apple account.

Do you have a record of that (your emails and their cancellation notice)? Would be very interesting to see how that went down.

> Purchasing the same app more than once on the same device shouldn't even be possible.

It’s not and I don’t think it has ever been.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#556

Post by Razengan »

beaner wrote: post #299
valuearb wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The App Store generates nearly 10 times as much revenues for developers per device sold as Google Play. How is building a safer walled garden that attracts the highest spending customers and makes them extremely comfortable with buying apps and subscriptions not a massive amount of utility?

Because if the app was permitted to be installed outside of the app store, it would make more money, meaning the app store offers negative utility to some developers. Fortnite is a huge brand outside of iOS. It iOS did not make the success of Fortnite. Epic doesn't need the app store's advertising to succeed, and being forced to go through this bottleneck only hampers them.

> Because if the app was permitted to be installed outside of the app store, it would make more money, meaning the app store offers negative utility to some developers. Fortnite is a huge brand outside of iOS. It iOS did not make the success of Fortnite. Epic doesn't need the app store's advertising to succeed, and being forced to go through this bottleneck only hampers them.

It’s the same for Epic on PlayStation, Switch and Xbox.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#557

Post by stale2002 »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #551
stale2002 wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US courts have consistently held that it is perfectly legal to do anything to your privated owned things that are not public. Your house example is wrong, because that has public viewing concerns on a plot of land. And your car example is incorrect. I could make any changes at all to a car, that is not put on public roads. That has nothing to do with the manufacturer putting restrictions on your car.

iPhones are put on “public” internet and therefore is restricted for the safety of the user and the safety of society. If you want to cherry pick arguments we can do this all day. The reality is Apple is just doing what every manufacturer has done for millennia!

> The reality is Apple is just doing what every manufacturer has done for millennia!

Certain actions are illegal if a company has too much market power.

Anti trust law does not require a literal, singular monopoly, in order for some anti-competitive behaviors to be illegal.

Instead, Apple has ~50% of the market share in the US, and that is within the realm where certain actions become illegal, according to anti-trust law.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#558

Post by stale2002 »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #550
stale2002 wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I bought scissors that could only cut certain types of paper If there was a scissors duopoly, in which a company that controls 50% of the market, implemented practices that are anti-competitive, then this could be illegal. > has always been limited to the feature set the manufacturer originally intended for it. Actually, no. Once you purchased the item, you can do whatever you want with it, regardless of what th…

And the courts agreed! I agree! If you want to jailbreak your iPhone you can and you should! I even agree Apple should be forced to create more tools to create jailbroken iPhones. However, the warranty should be void. Same as if you use scissors as a hammer, which is your right, the warranty is void. Expecting the original warranty to hold, or expecting the manufacturer to help you misuse the tool is the entitlement.

> expecting the manufacturer to help

If their actions are anti-competitive, then they absolutely have obligations, under anti-trust law, which does not require a literal monopoly, and only instead requires significant market power for these laws to apply.

Apple is subject to the law. They have to follow it, or they will suffer consequences.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#559

Post by simion314 »

Razengan wrote: post #552
simion314 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is even worse: - as a developer you don't get "a sack of money" but you get a 30% tax (larger then Epic - as a user you don't get free games, discounts or the option to wait for the exclusivity to expire. On top of that you will never(probably) have the option to touch the game files and mod it.

This is the same as with consoles, and people are fine with it. The App Store also pays out more revenue to developers than other stores, a major reason being that you can literally access all the users on iOS by publishing on just one store.

People are not fine with it, if you can't use a PC for gaming then you have 2 shitty choices (expensive games, different subscriptions to unlock features, pretty bad customer support) BUT this is a bad argument why Apple or other smarphone or PC seller can just lock things up, the judge should consider the potential hard done to users and not the history of game consoles.

Re: Apple countersues Epic, seeks punitive damages

#560

Post by nodamage »

horsawlarway wrote: post #529
wruza wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually like it the way it is now. You don't hear our arguments, you only want to be represented in that court without us. But conscious apple users are not all pro-sideload. if the App Store is such a tremendous value, why don‘t you ask users to pay for access to that App Store directly Because the value is not in the appstore itself, but in an inability to push uncontrolled spy/trick/crap-ware through side chann…

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. --- You have not changed the end result, simply moved the goal posts for safety. Malicious apps can and do get approved. Malware has been signed by Apple. Millions are still tricked through websites loaded in the browser. You have NOT solved security or safety by sticking with a single store. In retur…

Ironically the person this quote is attributed to spent the majority of his life owning other human beings. I'm not sure we should put much weight into his opinion of "essential liberty".
Post reply on HN