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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

#571

Post by majani »

ghosty141 wrote: post #491
madeofpalk wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>isn't the competition here what we want? In my opinion not in this specific case. As an iOS user I WANT a system where everything conforms to certain guidelines. I do NOT want to fiddle with some weird custom in-App payment dialog which does it's own thing again. It'll be interesting to see how this court order will be "implemented", my guess is that not much will change for now.

My guess is Apple will force developers to provide a drop down of payment options with Apple Pay as the default

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

#572

Post by baxtr »

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/…

I had a WSJ subscription which I couldn’t cancel online. You have to call them, wait in line and then let them talk you into another free month and stuff. A bad experience.

It was so annoying I just gave up until my CC was locked.

This experience was definitely more expensive than using Apple’s services.

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

#573

Post by bin_bash »

TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #523
NikolaNovak wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other part is, what do the Apple subscription cover in terms of platforms? e.g.: If I can pay for say Guardian subscription either: 1. via their website/app and use it on iPhone, android, PC, etc; or 2. Pay for same subscription via Apple subscription and ONLY have it on my iPhone - that's a HUGE diff, and one that I have been extremely peeved off to discover in the past :-/. It only took one such experience to p…

I subscribe to HBO through Apple. The platform I watch it on doesn't matter. We use Roku.

I would consider going through HBO directly. I used to subscribe through Apple but once HBO offered a promo that I didn't qualify for because I was billed through Apple.

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

#574

Post by elondaits »

dylan604 wrote: post #455
travoc wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would really pay a 30% premium on all your digital purchases just to be warned about a subscription expiring next year? You might be an edge case.

You're assuming that the Epics of the world will actually lower their rates the 30%. Epic could just as easily keep the same prices, but now make that extra. That's the issue I have with Epic's arguments. They might lower the rates by a percent to entice people over to their system, but over time pull the cable company routine and just up the rates each time it renews or new version.

It’s almost impossible to analyze Epic’s rates “objectively”. Fortnite is free, but you can pay for in-game currency (V-Bucks) with which you buy cosmetics. You can buy V-Bucks directly (discounted in large amounts), get them through a monthly subscription slightly cheaper, or get a limited amount by playing (more if you buy a season pass which also includes cosmetics). BTW: Cosmetics are EXTREMELY overpriced, because you pay for “exclusivity” (think like USD 20+ for a fully accessorized skin with no effects beyond cosmetic). Even though Epic can claim it lowered the cost of V-Bucks in its store, you can only used them to pay for a small daily selection of arbitrarily overpriced cosmetics that Epic puts in its in-game store… so how much is a V-Buck worth? Nobody knows, and Epic can tweak it by making skins more or less detailed, or by giving away more or less V-Bucks to players and subscribers.

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

#575

Post by cynix »

plandis wrote: post #311
spywaregorilla wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still use Apple payments.

What do you mean? If purchases are directed to a developers own payment system I don’t have a choice, I cannot force that developer to use Apples payment system can I?

The ruling is that Apple cannot forbid linking to other payment methods _in addition to_ IAP, not _instead of_. Apple can still require that IAP must be one of the options.

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

#576

Post by 8note »

cletus wrote: post #504
nutanc wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just that. As a developer I wouldn't want Apple to know who my paying customers are. Right now, there is no option. With this hopefully there will be more options.

There's two sides to this actually. I, as a customer, don't want to pay many companies directly. The prime example is any news publication. There are many I'd happily pay for except (like gym memberships it seems) it can be incredibly difficult to cancel. I won't reward that model so they get none of my money.

I think more specifically, as a customer, I don't want to be locked into bad subscriptions, whether it's gym memberships or news publications.

I'm fine paying companies directly, but I don't want them to manage my subscriptions

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

#577

Post by spywaregorilla »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #563

yawn Apple is getting a mild slap on the wrist and the outcome of the case is probably the best for everyone. It did away with the most entirely absurd and egregious restriction but still lets a company like... choose how to run their business. If anything this is likely to drastically improve the quality of some big-name applications on Apple's platforms, further increasing their bottom line. I would bet money techn…

Epic tried to put Fortnite back on the app store in Korea. Apple refused.

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

#578

Post by jclardy »

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 dev, StoreKit sucks. StoreKit 2 basically fixes all the development pain points, but is iOS 15+ only so basically unusable for everyone until late next year. Payment models are limited to basically paid, free + IAP, free + subscription. No real trials, no paid upgrades, no configurable subscriptions (IE pay for 1-X seats.) That leads to things like Twitter's setup where every plus account has an individual subscription SKU.

On the code side you have to run your own backend purchase server because there is a ton of subscription information that is only relayed to the server (Cancellations, upgrades, downgrades, cross grades, billing problems, etc.), as the app has no way to know directly (Until SK2.) Services like RevenueCat help small devs deal with this, but then you have another cut out of your paycheck.

Things like price testing require more backend setup because Apple offers no way for an app to grab product information from themselves (You have to know every identifier, there is no way to just request "all available IAPs" via StoreKit.)

So basically, there is a ton of room for improvement on the dev side, and a lot of easy wins for someone like Stripe to capitalize on.

As a user, I don't have many complaints, other than not having an easy way to request a refund, other than finding the App Store email address and pleading your case. It should be something you can do via your purchases screen directly. As a dev, not being able to issue customer refunds sucks, as many users will think you are dismissing them by saying, "You've got to ask apple for a refund."

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

#579

Post by majani »

coldpie wrote: post #198
madeofpalk wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is why it’s app developers who were unhappy, not users The judge commented on that >> "Apple created an innovative platform but it did not disclose its rules to the average consumer. Apple has used this lack of knowledge to exploit its position. --- > Personally I probably just won’t buy things that require me to sign up for a new payment system You, as a consumer, will now have a choice, which you'll get to…

> This sounds like a win! Not if I wasn't interested in having the choice to begin with. Now some apps will not be purchasable by me unless I go through their account flow, which I don't want to. It's strictly worse (for me).

I trust Apple will force developers to provide a drop down menu of options for payments. I don't think they'll allow dodgy redirects and webviews. That's not in line with Apple's design principles.

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

#580

Post by whoisburbansky »

wvenable wrote: post #423
Spivak wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean everyone's assuming that non-IAP subscriptions are going to be 30% cheaper but I don't really buy it. If the market has proven that someone will pay $10 for a thing, suddenly offering it for $7 seems like a bad business move.

Many apps already have non-Apple-taxed pricing. So they can just keep price consistency without losing 30%.

Which apps do this?
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