I assume this doesn't affect the UK any more?
> Epic Games has also complained to the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal and to the Australian watchdog.
I read the entire article and missed that entirely. More coffee! Thanks for quoting it.
Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint
111–120 of 1001 posts
Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint
#112Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
It’s not about the outcome, it’s about reasoning from first principles and going where ever that leads you, regardless of how much you dislike the outcome. Nobody has to buy an iPhone, iPad, or MacBook. Apple has the right to create the software ecosystem they want to create. Their success in mobile computing is arguably a direct result of their closed ecosystem.
In the past US regulators have not agreed with your reasoning here. They broke up the original big telephone companies, for example.
Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What about platforms like Playstation or the computers built into Teslas etc, should we allow sideloading on those? I think we should, yes. Not necessarily by default, but there should be a switch advanced users can flip. Re: Tesla, there is in fact a long history of people fixing and modifying their cars. Why not the computers in those cars?
Hm. Hypothetical: if you modify the software in a Tesla, and your modification allows a hacker to remote control it, and this power is used to commit vehicular homicide, how much of the burden of responsibility do you have? I’m not a lawyer, so while I can throw out phrases like “endangering others through negligence”, I don’t know what the threshold is or even if that’s the right concept in this case. With regards t…
> Hypothetical: if you modify the software in a Tesla, and your modification allows a hacker to remote control it, and this power is used to commit vehicular homicide, how much of the burden of responsibility do you have?
If you were negligent, I'd say you were responsible, just like if you hit someone because you took off the breaks and couldn't stop.
Although... response question: Let's say in ten years, Tesla stops providing security updates for their old cars. If you continue driving the car anyway, and it gets hacked and kills someone, who is responsible? Which is to say, I'm not super into this whole internet-connected-car thing. ;)
> With regards to phones however, I explicitly want the devices heavily locked down by law, to the extent that other people should not be allowed to put random software on them. This is because they are powerful sensor packages that almost everyone carries almost all the time.
What if I decide to carry around a Raspberry Pi, or wear a wire? I understand the concern, but I don't think controlling what everyone else uses is a reasonable solution in a free society.
Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
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!
Because you don't have to pay Linus Torvalds money to run a program on a Linux installation - that should be the standard.
Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint
#116It 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…
> 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?
As someone who's released multiple retail games on the PS4 store:
Sony should allow sideloading. Microsoft does for the XBox (and has since the 360 era), and at one point Sony allowed it in the 'other OS' environment for the PS3 until they decided to take out that feature after using it to advertise their console.
Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Either "third party" app stores will also pay to support this ecosystem, in which case Epic will be paying the same amount either way how did you work out that the amount apple gets paid (30%) is the "correct" amount? The only way to find out is via competition. But due to the monopolistic powers of apple, there cannot be competition on their platform. Thus, we do not know the true cost of maintaining this platform…
> how did you work out that the amount apple gets paid (30%) is the "correct" amount? The only way to find out is via competition. The "correct" amount is the amount that everybody is happy to pay. If Epic doesn't want to pay 30%, then 30% is too high for them. That's OK -- nobody is forcing them to pay it. The competition you're describing isn't the cost of running the app store ; it's the cost of maintaining the en…
What are you on about? App developers are not the ones who should be monetarily supporting the ecosystem, the end user has already paid for the device.
Not only that, without developers, there is no ecosystem. An iPhone without apps is less useful than an iPod touch with apps.
Boohoo, the most cash rich silicon company will have to compete. Brew or Cydia never ate into Apples profit margins, instead it allowed users to do things apple couldn't be bothered supporting (Like Bluetooth audio on the 3g iPhone on iOS 2.0). Having multiple app stores will allow users to circumvent government censorship in countries where Apple is forced to follow the governments demands.
Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint
#118It 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…
> 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?
Unless they buy back the hardware, why not?
Companies change over time, it’s unrealistic to have the same service for ever (typically the product might be discontinued and not supported after some time, sometimes also the attitude when it comes to service changes). At the same time the platform was bought not rented and producing it and getting rid of it has its own cost.
I would argue it’s fair to demand open access to it.
I have an old iPad (3rd gen), since it can’t access iCloud properly or sync bookmarks with safari (a function that it originally had) or install Firefox, it’s essentially useless and I’m very unhappy with that, a whole car would be much worse though. I’ve learned to think about that before buying, but many don’t and often there’s no choice.
Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Nope. Hurts overall experience. Not only the App's won't be curated the same as the other ones, but now I would have to maybe reach to some webside to download a .ipa file or to download a secondary App store to get a apps that otherwise would be available on App Store.
Then keep using the curated store? It only hurts if Apple's store can't compete with alternative ones. There's no such problem on Android because developers and users are fine with the Play Store.
Epic even tried doing a sideloaded Fortnite for Android and people didn't download it, so they came back.
Re: Epic Games steps up Apple fight with EU antitrust complaint
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Either "third party" app stores will also pay to support this ecosystem, in which case Epic will be paying the same amount either way how did you work out that the amount apple gets paid (30%) is the "correct" amount? The only way to find out is via competition. But due to the monopolistic powers of apple, there cannot be competition on their platform. Thus, we do not know the true cost of maintaining this platform…
> how did you work out that the amount apple gets paid (30%) is the "correct" amount? The only way to find out is via competition. But due to the monopolistic powers of apple, there cannot be competition on their platform. Thus, we do not know the true cost of maintaining this platform - only that apple is able to maintain it with at least 30%. 30% is industry standard. > nobody is forcing you to use the third party…
Nobody is going to not put their app on the apple app store. Look at steam for example. Almost every game on steam can be purchased somewhere else, like icth.io or the game's website. 30% is industry standard among monopolistic players (Google play store, Apple app store, Steam). There are many other storefronts that take less of a cut, and don't require IAP to go through a specific payment system that the platform also owns. FDroid, MS Store, Epic Store, Galaxy Store, GOG, the list goes on.