> All that is going to happen if Epic gets their own store is Epic will be collecting the 30% rather than Apple
News flash, Epic already runs a store, and competes with another store (Steam) which takes a 30% cut. How much of a cut does Epic take there? 12%.
There is a well known example of Epic in a similar situation specifically not doing what you say they will, so why assume they will do that? Or are you arguing without knowing this fairly common knowledge of this case?
> the user will get apps that are poorly designed, chew battery, and don’t conform to the UX standards that Apple has set
These are games. They already don't conform to the UI standards. They already chew battery by the nature of what they do, not because they are inefficient. That said, being the authors of the Unreal Engine, Epic is in a key position to make changes so the engine works better with iPhone norms, performs better, and uses less battery and many games would benefit from that. If only Epic had more financial incentive to focus work on the iOS platform...
> and exploit undocumented APIs which change from iOS version to version.
Doubtful. They need to make sure their product is stable across a wide swatch of iOS devices, as individual game makers that license their product will have different support policies and targets. You don't make a widely portable and stable engine across multiple architectures and operating systems by using hidden and unstable APIs unless you have some assurance they aren't going away.
> Epic will blame Apple for all these problems, Apple will blame Epic for not doing sufficient QC, and we’ll be back in court with various store managers demanding that Apple stop changing things.
The blaming I see going on is people that don't really understand the market, the problems, or the incentives making wild conjectures that not only aren't backed up by anything, whether that be logic or evidence, but seem to run counter to that.
> If you want third party stores, there’s the Android ecosystem.
They're being sued too. They take the same cut. You can put an alternate store on Android, but you can't have it function with the same permissions (you need to manually approve each install, and it can't auto-update). This is what keeps third party stores from actually being a reality there. I don't consider secondary stores that ship with the phone on purchase and are part of the customer OS shipped "third party", and that's what has to be done to really compete on the same level as the Play store, and even then, it's not like they're used much. This is all about control and Apple not wanting to give up that very lucrative 30% cut of in app purchases, and subscriptions.