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Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

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Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#61

This will certainly get appealed and bogged down even more in the legal system, right? What are the chances this actually happens? And when? Secondly, this is such an easy way to increase your take by 20+% that I would imagine almost every publisher is going to be offering their own payments platform, not just the biggest ones like Epic.

Yeah, agree. I think this would kill the App Store model. It's surprising that the stock only dipped by 2%. What am I missing?

Why would the app store model stop working? Paying through the app store has a direct benefit to usability. Before in app purchases the app store model worked fine.

Even if the Epic lawsuit goes completely off the rails and Apple is forced to allow external app stores on iOS, they can still maintain a profitable app store if they provide the best experience to end users. Building an app store is very hard, and convincing people to install an alternative store is even harder, so I doubt they'll lose much there.

The app store is so ludicrously profitable that the exclusivity they enjoy can't possibly be the only reason it's making them money. This cut into Apple's (and Google's) profits, but it certainly won't mean the end of app stores as we know them.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#62
Note Epic also has to pay 30% damages.

> On the counterclaim, in favor of Apple on the counterclaim for breach of contract. Epic Games shall pay (1) damages in an amount equal to (i) 30% of the $12,167,719 in revenue Epic Games collected from users in the Fortnite app on iOS through Epic Direct Payment between August and October 2020, plus (ii) 30% of any such revenue Epic Games collected from November 1, 2020 through the date of judgment, and interest according to law.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#63
post #51

Hopefully this will eventually lead to a day where users once again have full control over their devices. Android is a bit better, even if alternate app stores don't have the same system privileges as Google Play, but Apple devices are wholly authoritarian in what you can run on a device you supposedly own.

Google Devices are anything but owned by customers. You don’t have anything yours there, not even your data, location.. anything. Wake up.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#66
post #41

> “The court cannot ultimately conclude that apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws,” she writes in the ruling. “Nonetheless, the trial did show that apple is engaging in anti-competitive conduct under California’s competition laws.” It's nice to see that you don't have to be a monopolist to be legally barred from anti-competitive behaviour. I hope this puts a permanent stop to all the thr…

> I hope this puts a permanent stop to all the thread on HN arguing one way or another whether Apple is a monopoly. Why would it? The court basically dodged the question, so we still don't have an answer provided by the court system. Until that happens, we can discuss it to death if we want! Edit: excerpt from the ruling is: "Given the trial record, the Court cannot ultimately conclude that Apple is a monopolist unde…

Dodging the question would be a non-ruling. The judge issued an injunction. It's in the title of the post.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#67

> “The court cannot ultimately conclude that apple is a monopolist under either federal or state antitrust laws,” she writes in the ruling. “Nonetheless, the trial did show that apple is engaging in anti-competitive conduct under California’s competition laws.” It's nice to see that you don't have to be a monopolist to be legally barred from anti-competitive behaviour. I hope this puts a permanent stop to all the thr…

It then leaves a bigger argument for reversal on appeal.

> It then leaves a bigger argument for reversal on appeal.

The argument is not "bigger". It is exactly the same. If we're not a monopoly (Apple), how can we be anti-competitive?

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#68

This will certainly get appealed and bogged down even more in the legal system, right? What are the chances this actually happens? And when? Secondly, this is such an easy way to increase your take by 20+% that I would imagine almost every publisher is going to be offering their own payments platform, not just the biggest ones like Epic.

It will be interesting to see how many small companies figure out that tax and general compliance is worth every penny that Apple charges them. Smart ones will opt for a seller of record approach, but many will get burnt.

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#69

That’s it. The App Store is broken. Major win to Epic. I’ll keep using apps and services that take funds via Apple Pay though. I trust Apple in this sense.

In App Payments does not equal Apple Pay

tl;dr IAP DNE Pay

Re: Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

#70
Reading this, I cannot help but imagine someone at Apple thinking to themselves "I wish we had granted Epic an exemption like we did with Netflix".

The court proceedings and the documents that they were required to disclose were surely bad for PR and now it looks like they won't even keep the monetary benefits.

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