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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

#541

Post by tshaddox »

madeofpalk wrote: post #25
yurishimo wrote: post #15

I'm really happy to see this moving forward, but I loathe the potential future landscape. Every fortune 500 is going to immediately pivot to their own IAP options which will make my life harder compared to Apple Pay. I'm hoping with this movement, tools like Stripe/Paddle will develop some better IAP flows to make it as easy as possible. Adding my card information to 50 different in-app wallets does not sound appeali…

Just to be clear here (and this fact doesn't really detract from your point) - Apple Pay is very different to Apple's In App Purchases. Apple Pay can be used anyhere, and it could still be used if a company rolls their own purchase system on their website that they link to from the app. Apple only gets a very minor % cut of Apple Pay transactions, from the bank, compared to Apple IAP where Apple gets 30% from the dev…

> Besides, isn't the competition here what we want?

Depends what you mean. The subtlety that is always lost in these conversation on HN is how deep does the competition have to go? I don't think anyone seriously argues that iPhones do not have viable competition in the smartphone market. And yet, if I as a consumer want to use a smartphone which places strong restrictions on third-party developers (which is one of the most significant reason I use iPhones and recommend them to friends and family), somehow those restrictions are considered "anti-competitive." If these restrictions are lifted or prohibited, that clearly removes one of the key differences between iPhones and their competitors (mostly Android phones), and it baffles me that this could be construed as a more competitive smartphone market for consumers.

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

#542

Post by progbits »

dleslie wrote: post #330
Factorium wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortnite will come and go but Unreal Engine will be generating revenues forever. Epic are more motivated by transferring the excess profits of Apple into modest profits for developers, who then redistribute 5% of their revenues (as part of the Unreal Engine license) back to Epic. I wonder if Epic will sue Steam and console developers next... Epic sells Unreal to Sony and Microsoft, so suing them is probably unlikely.…

> But Valve could definitely be the next target. Valve would simply refer the judge to their rather-successful competitors, including: - Epic Game Store - Origin - Blizzard Store - Microsoft Store - GoG - Itch.io - Ubisoft Store - Bethesda Store And to further their point, Valve would show how many games on Steam are found on other stores, and Valve doesn't prevent other companies from listing games on other stores.…

Not even a monopoly question (the ruling says it can't call Apple a monopoly).

However Steam is not a walled garden. Feel like they charge too much? Go to itch.io or make your own website with Paypal button. It is your machine, your OS.

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

#543

Post by [deleted] »

simonh wrote: post #501
danShumway wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not really what lock-in means. An example of lock-in is making a conscious decision not to port iMessage to Android, specifically because it would make it easier for iPhone users to move to Android[0]. Making Apple products work well with other Apple products isn't lock-in. Purposefully making Apple products work worse with other systems, phrased within the company as a way to punish users who switch, is the k…

>Making Apple products work well with other Apple products isn't lock-in. Cool. iMessage works perfectly well with SMS, which is the only true open messaging standard, and therefore will work with anything else that interoperates with SMS. Job done.

[deleted]

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

#544

Post by yyyk »

Razengan wrote: post #474
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…

Apple has always given me a refund for shitty apps without question, whereas shitty apps who have their own payment system, like CouchSurfing, never even respond to requests for refunds at all. The silent majority – the users – will always prefer to go through Apple. But HN seems to be full of user-hostile devs (as you can tell by looking at all the downvoted comments here who speak from a user’s PoV) who only hear t…

The Apple fee model favours cheap shitty apps because that's the best way to not get gouged by Apple's fees.

Relaxing that model will lead to better apps overall because finally you can invest and charge appropriately, you just need to trust yourself to not pay in apps you don't trust.

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

#545

Post by smolder »

blackoil wrote: post #375
TheCoelacanth wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should care if they are a monopoly, because if they're a monopoly, then they simply shouldn't be allowed to exist. Even if they aren't a monopoly, they shouldn't be allowed to engage in anti-competitive behavior.

> if they're a monopoly, then they simply shouldn't be allowed to exist. Market driven de-facto monopoly are allowed. If you own >90% search engine marketshare it is fine as you have earned it. If you abuse the marketshare to enter shopping, travel market it is monopoly-*abuse* and it should be blocked/fined.

Abuse would include if you were charging ridiculous amounts of money for your monopoly service, like Ma Bell did, right? What about deterring competition with portfolios full of braindead patents? Buying legislation that puts high barriers around the market? I think the separation between government and big business is a farce, today, and in combination they're way more oppressive than high priced telephone service was way back when.

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

#546

Post by astlouis44 »

Bravo to Epic and team, but I have to say that the web will win out long term. It's cross platform, "just works" everywhere, and developers are free to choose from any payment system. They also don't have to live in fear from retribution by the platform owner.

Our startup Wonder is building a decentralized 3D platform in the browser for Unreal Engine 4 developers who want to ship their immersive applications on the web, be it games, product visualizations, even VR apps. We plan on extending support to Unity and other engines in the near future as well.

The biggest innovation is that we offer the tooling to optimize, package, and distribute rich software online that previously could only run on desktop. Thanks to WebAssembly, WebGPU, WebTransport, and WebXR, even the most demanding applications can run client side in the browser.

Developers are free to host their creations on their own terms, without a middleman saying what they can and can't do.

Here's a link to our Discord if you're interested in hearing more:

https://discord.gg/cFJV6Yu

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

#547

Post by jollybean »

I think the other, possibly more meaningful issue, is Apple's control over who can and cannot make an app for their devices.

If you put a product in BestBuy, it's understandable that BestBuy would not want you to offer a very cheap upfront price, and then to have all sorts of 'add ons' sold directly to consumer where BestBuy doesn't make any money.

It's fair that BestBuy sets terms that they can participate in the follow ons.

The limiting factor here, however, is competition.

If anyone could make an AppStore for iOS, then the issue of Apple's or BestBuy's 'terms' could be side-stepped.

The power imbalance is caused by a lack of competition.

If there was competition, app makers would find a place where they were not constrained by in-app purchases, or something along those lines.

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

#548

Post by qwytw »

HideousKojima wrote: post #345
ecf wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's nice to see that you don't have to be a monopolist to be legally barred from anti-competitive behaviour Can someone ELI5 why Apple is considered to be anti-competitive for not dedicating resources to assisting another business in creating a competitor to a market for a platform they and they alone created? If Epic wants to have their game on a phone, it makes sense they abide by the rules enforced by the compa…

Because end-users own their phones, and Apple restricting the ways software can be loaded onto the phone is robbing those users of their rights. The same applies to game consoles and other similarly locked-down devices. If I buy a table, I can choose to stain it a different color, or put a tablecloth over it, or cut the legs off, or burn it for firewood. I have the right to use it however I want for whatever purpose…

Well the table manufacturer is not obliged to make it possible or easy for you to use the table as a chair, a bed or an airplane. I'm not really a fan of Apple but it's not that they are hiding the fact that you can only install software on the iPhone via the app store. It's the way they choose to design their product and it's an inherent feature of it (and part of their business model). Should all companies which build devices which include general purpose computers internally be legally obliged to make it possible (and easy) for users to install arbitrary software on them?

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

#550

Post by yyyk »

acdha wrote: post #366
eropple wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

> It's really nice knowing that you can nuke a subscription without getting some dark patterns trying to talk you out of it.

Tim Cook said at the trial they could integrate a separate payment API into Apple's subscriptions. Alternatively, Apple could check the cancel method during app review - so that's not a reason to allow Apple's payment monopoly.

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