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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

#361

Post by [deleted] »

baldajan wrote: post #276
sudhirj wrote: post #223

Think Apple has already seen the writing on the wall - both S. Korea & the US are now probably going to push back against the IAP restrictions, and they can / should do a couple of things, which might actually increase revenue. 1. Cut down the IAP commission to 15% for everyone. 2. Cut down the commission to 5% for those who pay for a Business Account, say at $5,000 a year. The thing is no customer wants to use any c…

I'm not sure if you ever used StoreKit or their subscription API... its so full of holes and poor documentation and poor implementation that it's a nightmare to work with (particularly subscriptions). Don't believe me? There's a YC startup raising millions of dollars dedicated to solving the subscription implementation problems Apple has created...

[deleted]

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

#362

Post by kmeisthax »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #169
endisneigh wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gaming consoles.

We can still buy games outside the platform at this point. But we're probably nearing an age of consoles without disk drives, then yeah. I guess there is still the in-app purchase angle.

Strictly speaking, retail games are also part of the same platform. Game consoles have the same lockout policies Apple does - in fact, they were literally invented decades prior to the iPhone by console manufacturers. You still have to pay a platform royalty on physical copies; except now you also have to throw margin to distributors and retailers, too; and the games can be resold without you making a penny.

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

#363

Post by prepend »

wlesieutre wrote: post #343
acdha wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is no customer wants to use any company's half-assed bug-riddled purchase or subscription system. Every iOS and macOS user will prefer to use the Apple system. The first sentence is true but incomplete, making the second wrong. For example, the Amazon app is highly likely to have people using their existing Amazon payment method. Companies like Stripe are going to offer their own SDKs just like they do fo…

> Apple’s offerings are quite polished so I don’t think they’ll fall out of favor Any iOS devs care to weigh in? Apple's system could just as easily be a godawful mess. No personal experience but I've seen people online complaining about how StoreKit sucks. They've had in-app purchases since 2009 and no competitive pressure from other SDKs, because they can block them with app store policy instead of needing to offer…

As a user, Apples is the best and easiest payment system.

I’ll frequently not buy from sites that want registration and card info because of the hassle.

I’ll probably end up using things I already have accounts with (amazon, Google, steam) but will never buy from apps that require me to sign up with them to buy stuff. I already hate registering with companies to play games.

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

#364

Post by jsmith45 »

plandis wrote: post #280

As a consumer I trust how Apple payments work and like the fact that everyone was using it on iOS. Now I will need to cut back on apps and do more due diligence to avoid scams and other issues. Hard to see how this is a win for consumers in addition to developers.

Nothing in this injunction prevents Apple from requiring that if apps offer purchase options they must also offer IAP as an option.

I'm certain that even if the injunction were to go into force, Apple would continue to require that.

Apple could probably even mandate that the other purchase options not be cheaper than IAP pricing by more than apple's 30%, preventing developers from putting absurd prices on the IAP option, and only put real prices on their alternative methods. from the wording of the injunction itself is not even actually clear that apple cannot mandate the IAP and non IAP prices must be the same (the dicta might provide more clarity on if that would be permissible).

Then it becomes up to you if whatever discount is offered for non IAP purchases is worth the extra risks, or if you would rather use IAP.

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

#365

Post by [deleted] »

sudhirj wrote: post #223

Think Apple has already seen the writing on the wall - both S. Korea & the US are now probably going to push back against the IAP restrictions, and they can / should do a couple of things, which might actually increase revenue. 1. Cut down the IAP commission to 15% for everyone. 2. Cut down the commission to 5% for those who pay for a Business Account, say at $5,000 a year. The thing is no customer wants to use any c…

[deleted]

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

#366

Post by acdha »

eropple wrote: post #298
acdha wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is no customer wants to use any company's half-assed bug-riddled purchase or subscription system. Every iOS and macOS user will prefer to use the Apple system. The first sentence is true but incomplete, making the second wrong. For example, the Amazon app is highly likely to have people using their existing Amazon payment method. Companies like Stripe are going to offer their own SDKs just like they do fo…

Companies will want it, but I'm not sure users will. Apple does a really good job of warning me, I feel, and centralizing subscription cancellation etc., and that's huge. Like, if I have to go to your app--or worse, your website--to cancel a subscription? I'm gonna just not use your stuff, because I'm going to forget about it until you whack me for another year or whatever.

You'll get no argument from me that Apple's system is pretty good from a consumer standpoint — that's the primary reason why I predicted that it'd remain popular. It's really nice knowing that you can nuke a subscription without getting some dark patterns trying to talk you out of it.

On the other hand, it's really easy to imagine that you'd see something like “$9.99 IAP; $7.99 direct from Epic/Amazon/Google/Netflix/et al.”, especially when it's a company they already deal with and don't have a negative impression of.

The big question I'd have is whether that's possible or the other terms require price parity — and whether they'd be able to do something like offer bonus content, rewards clubs, etc. to nudge people toward their own store. I'd be somewhat surprised if, for example, Epic couldn't entice a fair number of people with some kind of in-game skin or other loot which they could argue has a resale value of $0.

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

#367

Post by a-dub »

this seems ridiculous.

does this mean that if disney resorts open up to third party vendors (assuming they haven't already), they can't require them to accept the disney payment wristband?

apple is not a monopoly, nor is it anticompetitive. it is, however, opinionated and differentiates itself in the marketplace with that opinionation. there are less opinionated, yet very competitive alternatives and both users and developers are free to switch to them.

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

#368

Post by Andrex »

smnrchrds wrote: post #10

> “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…

All it says to me is federal antitrust guidelines are outdated and California's are not.

We need strong federal antitrust enforcement. This only worked because Apple is based in California, which has stricter rules.

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

#369

Post by manquer »

paulpan wrote: post #228

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but this ruling only applies for in-app purchases correct? E.g. Apple cannot force apps to default to and only use to its payment infrastructure for post-sale and within app transactions (which comes with 30% fees). In other words if my app costs $10 and in-app transactions are $1 apiece, Apple still gets $3 from initial purchase but instead of $.30 from each subsequent in-app transac…

Alternatively in a parallel universe, Apple will transparently price their other "services" basis the actual cost incurred such as number of reviews they do, number of downloads, OTAs, number of IAPs/ recurring subscriptions etc, and developers can figure out the best mechanism for their user case.

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

#370

Post by smichel17 »

8ytecoder wrote: post #304
acdha wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing is no customer wants to use any company's half-assed bug-riddled purchase or subscription system. Every iOS and macOS user will prefer to use the Apple system. The first sentence is true but incomplete, making the second wrong. For example, the Amazon app is highly likely to have people using their existing Amazon payment method. Companies like Stripe are going to offer their own SDKs just like they do fo…

Oh I agree with you. I think 30% is highway robbery and that opinion hasn't changed since day one. But also just take a look at the number of subscriptions we all have these days - Entertainment stuff (Spotify/Music, Netflix/streaming, HBO, Xbox Live), Donations (Charity, Github Sponsors), Software (Password managers, backup solutions, Jetbrains, Adobe), Membership (Prime/equivalent, internet, mobile), ... yada yada…

This wouldn't be an issue if credit card providers offered a standardized system for making subscription charges. When you sign up, you'd pre-authorize them to charge your card a certain amount per time period. You could revoke the authorization through your credit card company's website, along with your other subscriptions. If the service wanted to change the price, they'd need a you to re-authorize it.
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