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Court issues permanent injunction in Epic vs. Apple case

theverge.com

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

#611

Post by tshaddox »

easton wrote: post #603
tshaddox wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should revenue from iPhone hardware subsidize third-party iPhone app developers?

Because Apple doesn't break out the money from the App Store from the rest of their software/services business, and iOS isn't free, it's licensed with the purchase of a iOS device. If money from every iPhone sold goes into the software/services budget, one could conclude there's enough money coming into that budget from device sales to pay for their CDN/developers/etc.

You answered why there might be enough money to subsidize developers. Apple has a lot of money, there's no question about that, but I was asking why they should subsidize developers (or why we should expect them to).

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

#613

Post by hrbf »

latexr wrote: post #267
hrbf wrote: post #185

On the one hand this great for consumer choice, on the other, it will undoubtedly lead to a loss in purchasing confidence of regular users and a flood of scams or scam-like apps. Especially with regard to subscriptions, we’ve seen this play out via SMS-based ringtone subscriptions of days past. Personally, I will never subscribe to anything on my iOS devices if I cannot view and cancel it via the built-in subscriptio…

> it will undoubtedly lead to (…) a flood of scams or scam-like apps. Scams are alive and well on the App Store, they don’t need this ruling to thrive: https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/21/22385859/apple-app-store-...

Way to cherry-pick and dismiss. I would argue the possible long-term loss in purchasing confidence by the customers who were burned by a bad experience weighs a lot heavier overall.

Regarding scams, keep in mind that the ones I mentioned will come in addition to the existing ones, not displacing them, making an already non-ideal situation potentially way worse. To stem this, the app approval process could get even slower than it currently is.

A better solution would have been to somehow force Apple to lower its fee structure. This however is incompatible with certain economic liberties we take for granted and would set a worrying precedent, so the current outcome is probably the only pragmatic one.

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

#614

Post by shados »

acdha wrote: post #275
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…

> 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…

I agree with this. On top of that, the experience in games is often downright weird. I'm no Apple user, but on Android, you're in the game, you try to buy something, it pops the Android payment UX, you pay, then you wait a sec or two, get your thing in the game.

If its a Gacha or something, you then are getting some in-game currency, that you then have to redeem for the item you wanted. The extra steps are really annoying, and if its a company I trust, it would be easier to give them my info to smoothen things up (big if, mind you)

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

#615

Post by pornel »

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…

I would choose PayPal over Apple payments every time.

It's a good way to centralize and easily cancel subscriptions, and it handles more than just Apple's overpriced ecosystem. PayPal's site is not perfect, but it's still much more usable than Apple's subscription management running on iTunes' corpse.

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

#616

Post by AnthonyMouse »

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.

> 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.

So then we have two possibilities.

One, you're an outlier and nobody else cares.

Two, many users care about this enough to refuse payment systems that don't have it. In that case there will be a market for another payment system that has easy cancellations but charges ~5% instead of 30%.

Either way nobody pays 30% anymore.

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

#617

Post by eropple »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #371
eropple wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Third-party payment providers who I don't select , not being answerable to me as a platform holder, are incentivized to make it hard for me to cancel. Apple doesn't do that. I have better things to worry about than to track this stuff down and I desperately want to think about fewer stupid things in my life. Subscription management is solved and stupid. Perhaps look at it this way: I'm pretty OK with paying 30% to no…

>If that's an edge case, y'all are wrong. I don't want to pay an extra 30%, and have that 30% taken away from the devs who actually deserve the money, because _some_ might make it hard to cancel. Most would likely just have a Paypal button same as 90% of websites if that makes you feel better.

Devs "deserving the money" is a curious statement. I don't deserve dark patterns and stress in exchange for a subscription, do I?

And it doesn't make me feel better, because that's exactly the hellworld we have outside of iOS, but thanks!

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

#618

Post by pornel »

tshaddox wrote: post #517
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…

You can already buy stuff from the Amazon app using your existing Amazon payment method. All of this controversy is about in-app purchases of digital content.

Apple likes to imply it's only about frivolous things like powerups in games or iTunes songs, but software is eating the world, so the whole economy is moving to being "digital".

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

#619

Post by mbreese »

sangnoir wrote: post #322
mbreese wrote: post #235

IANAL, but I'm not sure that this order actually forces Apple to allow alternative in-app purchasing. > ... hereby permanently restrained and enjoined from prohibiting developers from (i) including in their apps and their metadata buttons, external links, or other calls to action that direct customers to purchasing mechanisms, in addition to In-App Purchasing ... To me this reads as Apple must allow people to be able…

> So users can be directed to alternative payment mechanisms, but that doesn't mean they must be allowed in the Apps themselves How do you foresee Apple disallowing that in the apps without violating the injunction? The injunction gives apps free-reign on UI elements that direct customers to non-Apple payment systems.

The way I read it (which might be wrong) was that the developers could put links to external websites in the app, but not necessarily require that the transaction be allowed to occur in the app itself.

In the case of Fortnite, Epic could include a link to their online store where you could buy V-Bucks that would be linked to your Fortnite account. This link would open in Safari, but could also be done on any other computer.

Under the old rules, Epic couldn't do this. Nor could Netflix send you a link to their webpage, or Kindle a link to the Amazon web site to buy a book.

Maybe it's the legalese, but the phase "direct customers to purchasing mechanisms" makes me think that the judge is referring to these external methods.

But as I mentioned on a sibling comment, I'm really unsure as to what is meant by "In-App purchasing". Is this Apple's mechanism, or any mechanism? It isn't clear to me, without more context. There may be a couple of interpretations.

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

#620

Post by ashtonkem »

acdha wrote: post #275
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…

> 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…

The ability to use Apple Pay on the web more seamlessly than I can use Stripe on the web will probably be Apple’s killer feature in this area. I’ve already noticed a change in my purchasing behavior because of it.
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