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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

#191

Post by zepto »

adamdusty wrote: post #120
darknessmonk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 a…

> Nobody is going to not put their app on the apple app store.

Certainly false - just like with streaming video, platforms will pay for exclusives from popular developers to force users to visit their stores.

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

#192

Post by toinetoine »

ericmay wrote: post #55
aboringusername wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic demands Apple do thing = bad for Apple (good for Epic) no way Apple demand Facebook do thing = Good for Apple (bad for FB) yes way So Apple is allowed to get its own way, 100% of the time, no questions asked, what they want is what they get end of (by virtue of holding all the cards and owning the platform they dictate the rules on) How about no? You can play by your rules in your sandbox, but Epic has a right t…

> Epic demands Apple do thing = bad for Apple (good for Epic) no way Epic demands Apple do a thing = bad for Apple, bad for customers (good for Epic) > Apple demand Facebook do thing = Good for Apple (bad for FB) yes way Apple demands Facebook do a thing = Good for Apple, good for customers (bad for Facebook) As a customer in these equations, I'm siding with Apple. > That's the very definition of "competition" someth…

> Epic demands Apple do a thing = bad for Apple, bad for customers (good for Epic)

How is allowing developers to use alternate payment platforms "bad for customers"? Or, if not on the phone, at least to allow them to add funds to their account from the browser/another platform and use it in their iOS app?

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

#193

Post by abakker »

kevingadd wrote: post #128
covercash wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do have that right, it’s called Android.

You only have that right in advance, though. If I get an iPhone and buy a bunch of software on it and then 3 years later Apple Changes The Terms Of Our Relationship, I don't have any ability to migrate my data (let alone my purchases) to another platform. Not only do I have to buy a new smartphone, I have to re-buy my apps even if those apps are available on Android. Even if the app's developer wants to give me the a…

Freedom of choice implies that you do have to make choices though. If I buy a Ford, and later decide that a Chevy is what I want, I don't complain...I sell the Ford.

If I have a windows computer, and I buy a mac, I can't run all my windows software. The developers of that software may not even make mac equivalents.

The idea that choices need to be ultimately convenient and consequence free is just not realistic. Depreciation, transaction costs, and functional differences between products are a consumer's problem to manage.

I agree with you on media files, but, I also know that there are plenty of workarounds to exporting iTunes specific media formats if you would rather leave iTunes behind.

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

#194

Post by Qahlel »

gwd wrote: post #135
eptcyka wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> App developers are not the ones who should be monetarily supporting the ecosystem, the end user has already paid for the device. Where does this "should" come from? Just because you don't think that's the best way to run an ecosystem doesn't mean nobody should be allowed to do it. If it's a bad model, that's Apple's problem, not yours. If you think you have a better model, start a new company with a different model…

> The fact that Apple has a rich and thriving ecosystem demonstrates that their business model works just fine.

It just shows it works for Apple. It doesn't show it works for everyone else. It's like slavery was a good system because it made the slave-owners rich and they thrived because of it.

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

#195

Post by zepto »

flenserboy wrote: post #38

I can't shake the feeling that Epic is a puppet, being used as a wedge to hash security on iOS devices. As much as it would be nice to have more control over one's iPhone, the horror of the Android marketplace is enough to give a body more than a little pause.

Look into who owns Epic .

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

#196

Post by buzzerbetrayed »

Qahlel wrote: post #155
fhood wrote: post #139

Apple does not actually have a monopoly, Android exists, has more market share, more options and features, and a better ecosystem of compatible smart devices. If Apple is forced to allow third party app marketplaces it is clear what will happen. Every major player will make their own marketplace and force you to use it to access their software and whatever other software they have paid to make exclusive. Epic is one…

> Apple does not actually have a monopoly This is like saying water is not an essential liquid, there is coca cola and pepsi.

So you're saying that somehow Google uses Apple as it's main ingredient for Android.. or something?

More likely, I think you thought the comparison sounded catchy, despite the fact that it has nothing to do with the situation.

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

#197

Post by SCHiM »

dubcanada wrote: post #184

I can hardly wait to use Amazon App Store to install Amazon and then open up the Epic Game Store to install random game and then open up EA Game Store to install random game and then open up Facebook App Store to install Facebook and then open up the Apple App Store to install the Blizzard App Store to install Hearthstone and then go back to the Apple App Store and update the Blizzard App Store so I can get the lates…

You install those yourself you know. I'd rather have a choice than not.

I feel your pain in the sense that that I think user UX will take a hit, but I think that's less important than breaking the monopoly of the current app store.

For example, I can't find apps with pornography or other types of things the high overlords at apple or Google have deemed inappropriate for me to have. That's bad. Apparently apps like Matrix fall under that category. It'd be nice if I can choose what I want to see.

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

#198

Post by FlownScepter »

kevingadd wrote: post #113
nickysielicki wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A quick Google says iOS' market share is 14%.

I don't understand this position at all. Google is by far and away the market leader. Their ecosystem is free and you can do just about anything in it. Their Play store's standards are utterly bare bones. The devices are cheaper. If what you want is an open source (ish) platform that you can hack on, modify, install software yourself, whatever, all of that is available to you, at a lower price, over there. This feels to be the ultimate first world problem, to pay a handsome premium for a top-tier device, then to complain about it's shortcomings. So take it back! Nobody made you buy one.

It's not like there aren't Android handsets that do all the stuff iOS ones do, occasionally even better, for similar prices. The main reason I stick to iOS is precisely for the locked down OS, and the curated App Store, so to see so many people complaining that they purchased the device when those things are like, the most obvious part of what comprises an iOS device, then complain about those things, is utter madness to me.

Why the fuck must Apple also do that, with a higher priced device, that everyone claims is inferior to Android handsets with their quad core processors and is "just a fashion item?" Android users seem unhealthily obsessed with turning iOS into Android. Just let us do our own thing over here for fuck's sake.

Yet again and again on here and elsewhere, iOS is constantly positioned as this MONOLITH of anti-consumer anti-developer DOOM, absolutely RUINING the mobile market. Again, FOUR. TEEN. PERCENT.

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

#199

Post by zepto »

mhh__ wrote: post #63
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.

Today you don't care. You might never do. Some people do at the moment, but that's not completely the point. This legislation should be about tail risk - protecting the people who increasingly only have an iPhone or iPad as their main computer from either forced obsolescence or restrictions on their behaviours.

Forcing people to use stores they don’t want to is the exact opposite of ‘protection’.

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

#200

Post by Qahlel »

Spivak wrote: post #21
ehvatum wrote: post #4

There is room for 3rd party app stores. Epic will argue that Apple does an absolutely ghastly terrible job of curating the Apple app store, as Apple really has little incentive not to suck completely. The EU court will agree. Apple will spend a year or two saying “it can’t be done”, then issue a signing certificate to Epic.

I still don't see a way to resolve the problem that software isn't fungible and so multiple app stores are only good for publisher choice but not user choice. Without the requirement that all apps able to be purchased on all stores at similar prices and still under Apple's review process then apps will flock to the store that makes them the most money and fewest rules and users will have no choice but to acquire that…

> Do gamers like the current culture of having to have Origin, Steam, UPlay, Epic, GOGs, Blizzard Store, for no other reason than large middlemen playing Civ with marketshare and exclusives?

I don't like my game library is fragmented. But what if Steam was the only store for PC and I wasn't able to buy/play any Epic or EA games because of that? That would be worse.

Or what if the game prices had to be higher than current prices since the only place I can buy a game was steam and there was no competition?

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