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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

#881

Post by pjanoman »

userbinator wrote: post #873
elefanten wrote: post #695

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except as soon as it becomes a remotely feasible action (with simple instructions) for the general consumer, a bunch of businesses will start requiring their users to disable "default Grandma mode". Imagine onboarding for Netflix including a pleasantly designed screen saying "Before you can use Netflix, you must Enable Third-party Stores. Go to Settings > Privacy..." If that comes to pass, there will be no highly-gua…

It may boggle the tech-savvy mind, but another way of reading the incredibly successful 10 year history of this horribly locked-down, oppressive OS is that the market has spoken. And it's happy. Don't forget that the market was pushed that way by Apple's highly influential marketing. People didn't really choose to give up their freedom of their own free will --- they were persuaded to, and only found out about the do…

Users are completely free to not use an Apple product. They have lost no freedom of their own will. Users choose this ecosystem over many other options.

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

#882

Post by Karunamon »

kergonath wrote: post #176
AYBABTME wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What I am very afraid of is a situation in which every developer pushes its own App Store with dodgy security and privacy. “Oh, you want Photoshop? Just add the Adobe store (don’t look at permissions, also please give us your debit card number, we promise it’ll be safe)”. “Oh, you want that nifty game? Just install our store. And also give us your bank account.” “Yes, Apple is draconian. So to get the Facebook app, y…

Android having one or two external app stores of any note with the vast majority of users hanging out on the Play store tells me that this doomsday scenario is unlikely.

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

#883

Post by Karunamon »

dleslie wrote: post #78
dariusj18 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Work-necessary software probably involved an enterprise provisioning profile, which for all intents and purposes, gives the holder of the profile full rights to your phone.

As for social, why isn't this happening on Android if it's so inevitable?

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

#884

Post by Silhouette »

elefanten wrote: post #695
Dma54rhs wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's depressing that even on hackernews where you expect people want to tinker and have control over their machines there's a probably a majority who are happy with the situation and use the think of my grandma (aka children) using iPhone situation. There could be numerous ways for Apple to let people run their own software or other stores without giving your grandma malware.

Except as soon as it becomes a remotely feasible action (with simple instructions) for the general consumer, a bunch of businesses will start requiring their users to disable "default Grandma mode". Imagine onboarding for Netflix including a pleasantly designed screen saying "Before you can use Netflix, you must Enable Third-party Stores. Go to Settings > Privacy..." If that comes to pass, there will be no highly-gua…

If that comes to pass, there will be no highly-guarded, highly-moderated mobile OS to choose from.

But we're not talking about changing the operating system, are we? We're talking about opening up the marketplace.

If you're relying on perfect/near-perfect moderation of every application in your marketplace to protect your users from abuse by developers, that already seems like asking the impossible.

The operating system should have a robust security and privacy model that protects users, regardless of what software they run on it. But if you have that, the source of the software matters a lot less, and any argument based on restricting distribution to authorised channels will be weakened.

Conflating these two fundamentally different issues might be convenient for Apple's PR or legal departments, but it's still obscuring how a customer's device is being restricted in ways not necessarily in that customer's favour.

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

#885

Post by Karunamon »

suifbwish wrote: post #865
hacknat wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could continue to not install those 3rd party apps if Apple was forced to open their platform.

I’m just not sure why they should be forced to open a platform they made and own so other people who don’t own it can get what they want. If I sell property I don’t have to give mineral rights and the purchaser accepts that up front. Why should phones be any different. Should we force all software companies to give us the source code of their proprietary software that we buy? They sell us compiled versions of it whic…

I'm just not sure why I should be forced to accept restrictions on hardware I bought and paid for.

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

#886

Post by judge2020 »

vbezhenar wrote: post #746
Dma54rhs wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's depressing that even on hackernews where you expect people want to tinker and have control over their machines there's a probably a majority who are happy with the situation and use the think of my grandma (aka children) using iPhone situation. There could be numerous ways for Apple to let people run their own software or other stores without giving your grandma malware.

It's pretty simple. Apple users don't want to spell it, so I will. They want Apple to have a strong market position, so Apple can dictate their conditions to everyone else. They like the fact that Apple can bend every developer out there including Facebook and Google, because access to Apple users is a luxury. They like the fact that Apple uses its position to benefit Apple users. Of course Apple uses its position to…

> Of course Apple uses its position to benefit Apple itself as well, but users don't care as long as they got their personal benefits like improved privacy or security. If that comes at a price to other developers, price that those developers would not pay with more open approach, users still don't care.

If this is true, then you need to ask the question "should big companies be forced to be more competitive, even if doing so means a good amount of customers will lose privacy and security", and your answer will be entirely one of preference, what you say can't be correct or incorrect.

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

#887

Post by Osiris »

elefanten wrote: post #695
Dma54rhs wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's depressing that even on hackernews where you expect people want to tinker and have control over their machines there's a probably a majority who are happy with the situation and use the think of my grandma (aka children) using iPhone situation. There could be numerous ways for Apple to let people run their own software or other stores without giving your grandma malware.

Except as soon as it becomes a remotely feasible action (with simple instructions) for the general consumer, a bunch of businesses will start requiring their users to disable "default Grandma mode". Imagine onboarding for Netflix including a pleasantly designed screen saying "Before you can use Netflix, you must Enable Third-party Stores. Go to Settings > Privacy..." If that comes to pass, there will be no highly-gua…

This hasn't happened on Android where third party stores and side loading are available and have been since the beginning.

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

#888

Post by kingsleyopara »

wraptile wrote: post #859
drstewart wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except we all know the real option will be to buy game X from X's own app store for $39.00, so the only thing the consumer has gained is extra friction in exchange for the developer pocketing a larger share.

> Except we all know the real option will be to buy game X from X's own app store for $39.00 Why? Epic Store is literally giving games and discount vouchers away so you'd get _on_ they're platform. You somehow imply that there wouldn't be competition between competing services?

Seems a little short-sighted. Epic are not a charity. Discounts are clearly a ploy to capture marketshare from Steam et al... Games/products will always be priced the most the market is willing to pay for it. If just before launch costs drop by half do you really think the price drops by half?

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

#889

Post by kingsleyopara »

015a wrote: post #509
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…

Suggesting that iOS should not be more like literally the most vibrant, healthy, popular computing platform ever created (Windows) is borderline delusion. The Mac is great, but the Mac App Store is garbage. And that's the iOS analogue there. That's because Mac has alternatives; centralized, forced big-tech App Stores don't work in the face of alternatives. The only platforms they have worked on (iOS, lesser degree An…

> The Mac is great, but the Mac App Store is garbage.

The Mac App Store is garbage and so will be the iOS App Store if Apple are forced to allow alternate stores.

I love the Mac... but it really isn't great for regular (non hacker news) people - unlike iOS I've seen plenty of Macs needing a reinstall

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

#890

Post by judge2020 »

jaegerpicker wrote: post #347
dragonwriter wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> does Epic have consumers back? Of course not. In principal, in a capitalist society, no firm is on the consumers side—all are trying to extract maximum value from the consumer and give back as little as possible in return. But, ideally, this is constrained by robust competition between firms. To the extent Apple exercises a practical monopoly, Epic fighting against their ability to leverage that monopoly to dictate…

Why is that in consumer's interest? This isn't Windows and IE, there are choices available to every consumer. If you compare Android's eco-system vs Apple's, it's clear that Apple is better for consumer's to me. Better quality apps, far less piracy, far less viruses, and safer better payment options. If iOS was the only game in town, I'd 100 percent agree but it's not. There is very little proof that proof that it's…

> far less piracy

From a consumer standpoint, this is a negative ;)

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