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Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

reuters.com

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Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#71

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

dleslie wrote: post #14
aboringusername wrote: post #11

It feels a bit hypocritical when Apple laughs at FB for complaining about their new tracking pop-up yet when the shoe's on the other foot and Apple may actually have to compete on its own platform they double down and defend their right to be judge, jury and executioner. Apple competing with third party app stores on iOS is going to be amazing. No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other st…

On the one hand, Apple is acting as a store curator and demanding that its customers be made aware of tracking software. On the other hand, Apple is acting as a platform owner and demanding that they continue to act as the sole store curator on their platform. I do not see the hypocrisy.

How you can argue for less software freedoms, while paying a 30% tax for any app you distribute, is honestly mind boggling to me.

>On the one hand, Apple is acting as a store curator and demanding that its customers be made aware of tracking software.

This sounds like marketing. Apple is limiting what apps their customers have access to. I wonder if you would make the same argument if Apple starts blocking websites?

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#72

Post by dleslie »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #56
dleslie wrote: post #32

I'm not excited by the proposition of either party coming out on top. I hope the EU sees the forest for the trees and understands that the situation is a lot more complicated than either party would claim. Apple is acting as a leader in reducing the footprint of general computing hardware; albeit their devices have among the longest service lives, they continue to be further restricted in their operation over time. T…

Candy Crush Saga is in the list of Top Free Games on the App Store. So was Fortnite, up until Epic decided they were tired of paying the Apple Tax. Apple isn't defending users from games with manipulative business models, and in fact is actively profiting from them. This lawsuit is about Apple's ability to profit from them.

Very good points. We can't trust Apple to curtail exploitative software.

The EU has a proven track record of exploring innovative regulation; perhaps they will find a solution.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#73

Post by dpkonofa »

mhh__ wrote: post #36
jonwinstanley wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other stores from competing What about platforms like Playstation or the computers built into Teslas etc, should we allow sideloading on those? How do you define a platform?

Pragmatically, I don't care, because no one who owns a Tesla is using it as their sole access to a computer (similarly with playstation). Many people now only use an iPad or iPhone these days. In an ideal world I would force them (I probably wouldn't for a Tesla because diy software on a car...) to have some basic ability to load programs.

Why don't they just do the same with Apple, then? Force them to have some basic ability to load programs. You can even make it easy for users and put an icon on the home screen. To make it obvious that you can load apps and programs for it, they would just need to label it as "App Store" or something like that. Problem solved!

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#74

Post by olivierduval »

Actually, Apple Store and Google Play (and Steam, yeah) are the same: they are monopolistic platform, either formally (Apple) or de facto (Google). A bit like IE browser in Windows in the 90's

I think that each editor can still provide an App Store, with specific price model for editor/users, and have to allow competition (with different features... for example, less curation) by providing THE SAME access for the user. For example, every app store must include other main app store. Right now, if you want to use F-Droid, you cant do it as smoothly as using Google Play because it's not on Google Play (but Amazon apps are I think).

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#75

Post by pjmlp »

T-A wrote: post #58
pjmlp wrote: post #2

Good luck, iDevices are a very tiny portion of European mobile market. Looking forward to the EpicOS Phone, running yet another SDL/Qt variant.

31% in Europe, much more in some markets (54% in Sweden): https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/europe https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/sweden

Which doesn't matter when talking about monopolies and such.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#76

Post by pjmlp »

drinkcocacola wrote: post #8
pjmlp wrote: post #2

Good luck, iDevices are a very tiny portion of European mobile market. Looking forward to the EpicOS Phone, running yet another SDL/Qt variant.

If I were a mobile phone manufacturing company, I won't call 30% of European market a "tiny portion".

True, but it makes it irrelevant for Epic baby cries from law point of view.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#77

Post by pentae »

darknessmonk wrote: post #37

> Apple competing with third party app stores on iOS is going to be amazing. No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other stores from competing. The walled garden is a selling point, a feature - I don't care about sideloading at all. You want to sideload? Grab and Android.

How about don't tell me what device I can or can't use? I want to sideload on my iPhone.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#78

Post by dleslie »

dariusj18 wrote: post #66
AYBABTME wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if consumers like it like that: one sandbox curated by Apple?

Then they continue to use the Apple App store.

That may not be an option if work-necessary or social-connection-necessary software moves to an alternate store to enjoy less restrictions.

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#79

Post by pjmlp »

wwtrv wrote: post #9
pjmlp wrote: post #2

Good luck, iDevices are a very tiny portion of European mobile market. Looking forward to the EpicOS Phone, running yet another SDL/Qt variant.

According to StatCounter it’s ~30% while it’s two times smaller than in the US (~60%) I wouldn’t say it’s “tiny”.

Not enough for "monopolies".

Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint

#80

Post by dieortin »

mywittyname wrote: post #50
darknessmonk wrote: post #37

> Apple competing with third party app stores on iOS is going to be amazing. No computer platform should be allowed to prevent sideloading or other stores from competing. The walled garden is a selling point, a feature - I don't care about sideloading at all. You want to sideload? Grab and Android.

If you don't care about sideloading? Don't sideload, just use the Apple Store. Users like you have zero skin in the game. Nothing in your workflow will change, other than you might get cheaper applications.

Until you’re forced to download the FB App Store for Facebook apps, the Epic Games store for theirs, the Google App Store for Google applications...

It’s not true users who don’t want to side load have zero skin in the game. The entire ecosystem would suffer.

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