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Apple Disabling 'Sign in with Apple' for Epic Games on September 11

macrumors.com

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Re: Apple Disabling 'Sign in with Apple' for Epic Games on September 11

#111

It's always interesting to read the comments on articles about the Epic Games situation. We can have discussions about Apple's cut or how Apple operates their store but this is such a clear cut case that I'm honestly surprised so many HN readers are siding with Epic (or maybe it's just the anti-Apple crowd looking for any reason to crap on Apple). Epic tried to get Apple to allow a whole new store on their platform A…

I swear all of the comments about "I could host it myself and use stripe and pay way less" just reeks of...

Except for the part where hosting my own website/store and using Fastspring for processing Mac app sales was actually less of a PITA than dealing with the Mac App Store with its signing, certificates, shitty first version of cert management, et. al. And it was far less expense and hassle than 30% of sales. Hosting one's own iOS app web store probably wouldn't be a whole lot more trouble.

So in this comparison, doing it myself is Dropbox. Going the Apple Store route is wiring together FTP with SVN, getting curlftpfs working,...and paying extra for the privilege.

Re: Apple Disabling 'Sign in with Apple' for Epic Games on September 11

#113
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple can, at will, remove your entire foundation or business, your (their) customers and your existence on iOS is just gone. For Epic, though, only 12% of their revenue comes from IOS, so they're willing to dump Apple.

It might be less than that if Fortnite iOS users just move over to another platform and keep playing Fortnite.

"We're sorry that you were unable to log in with Apple. Here's a discount offer on an HTC U-series phone! And we'll throw in five new Fortnite skins!"

Re: Apple Disabling 'Sign in with Apple' for Epic Games on September 11

#114

It's always interesting to read the comments on articles about the Epic Games situation. We can have discussions about Apple's cut or how Apple operates their store but this is such a clear cut case that I'm honestly surprised so many HN readers are siding with Epic (or maybe it's just the anti-Apple crowd looking for any reason to crap on Apple). Epic tried to get Apple to allow a whole new store on their platform A…

> Epic isn't fighting for the little guy Nobody is fighting for the little guy, but this is still advantageous for the consumer. Apple is even fighting with Facebook, since you are forbidden to disclose the 30% cut with consumers.

If Epic’s PC store is any indication, consumers will eventually have to face bullshit exclusives that force them to use the Epic store and largely cost the exact same.

Re: Apple Disabling 'Sign in with Apple' for Epic Games on September 11

#115
post #25

This is something many people feared might happen, and now, it's become a reality: Apple can, at will, remove your entire foundation or business, your (their) customers and your existence on iOS is just gone. Apple is a company that needs to be brought down a peg or two, it's far too 'valuable' in terms of its market worth, and needs a huge kick up the ass as Microsoft once had to show them some respect. And the EU w…

Replace Apple’s iOS ecosystem with Microsoft’s Xbox, Sony’s PlayStation or Nintendo’s Switch. Either you destroy the console ecosystem by forcing them all to open up, or classify iOS as somehow different... or you leave them all to enforce their business agreements through mutually accepted legal term. If Epic doesn’t want a different agreement than Apple, they can negotiate alternative legal terms.

I've seen this comment specifically from you come up a lot in all the apple vs epic conversations.

This is whataboutism for sure.

It moves the discussion to a less constructive, more re-hashed place.

Consoles are different because they're not sold as general purpose computing devices and do not have the market penetration size that iOS does.

There is a great argument for allowing all consumers to install whatever software they want on all devices they purchased - including consoles - by law. I'd like to see this - for over a decade, a lot of tech communities have pushed for this - but this isn't the conversation we're having today.

Re: Apple Disabling 'Sign in with Apple' for Epic Games on September 11

#116

Alright, so Apple are forcing all developers to add Sign-in with Apple (if they have other third-party login services), privacy benefits aside. But if you Apple decide that they don't like you anymore, they'll not only cut you off the App Store, they'll also bury all (or a subset of) your users. Apple is starting to act more and more like a bully. [1] https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/#sig...

> But if Apple decide that they don't like you anymore...

Epic intentionally broke the rules. Maybe Apple's actions are right, maybe wrong. But don't pretend Apple just out-of-the-blue decided to do this to Epic for no reason.

Re: Apple Disabling 'Sign in with Apple' for Epic Games on September 11

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should be careful drawing too many comparisons to consoles, because as someone who owns rooted consoles that run homebrew mods, I can attest that it's actually awesome and improves the user experience in about a dozen ways. My 3DS supports savestates & backups for games like Animal Crossing that let me maintain multiple towns at the same time, custom emulators that run my old Gameboy cartridge backups that I m…

The consequence isn't that your 3DS would have been better upon releasing, its that it wouldn't have released if the console market had been required to operate this way.

And again, I'm sympathetic to that argument. But then don't argue that the iPhone is exactly the same.

I don't think anyone can reasonably argue that Apple would stop producing the iPhone if sideloading was allowed. The smartphone market doesn't operate the same way as the console market.

Re: Apple Disabling 'Sign in with Apple' for Epic Games on September 11

#118
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the case of Microsoft, they denied the Xbox gaming app on the store after it had already been going through wide beta use on ios. They denied it on the grounds that they need to review every xbox game. Which is nonsense. They don't review every netflix movie, they don't review every spotify song, they don't review other content. The app that was denied doesn't actually download the games either, its a remote/onlin…

But that doesn't make a lot of sense. Say this case was actually about Nintendo and the Switch. Nintendo doesn't allow any X rated games anywhere ever on their platform. And then this game comes along that, to the user, just plays other games. Why shouldn't they be reviewed like everything else on the platform? To the user the implementation doesn't matter.

Xbox doesn't allow "X rated" games and the all games have an ESRB rating that could be enforced as native app controls just like music streaming, tv & video streaming.

in fact, it's safer than Youtube if safety is a concern...

Re: Apple Disabling 'Sign in with Apple' for Epic Games on September 11

#119
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this based on?

Conjecture. Laws in the EU are far less strict and precise to begin with than US laws that you might be used to. The EU competition commission has wideranging powers to fine almost any company as it sees fit for even no reason at all. But to maintain its own existence, the public (voters -> MEPs) need to think it's doing a good job. A good way to do that is to fine companies voters think are evil.

The anti-trust legislation used to be applied much more widely in the US, but that has changed (and we see a market with a lot of bully monopolists because of this).

It doesn't really come down to if the law is precise or not, but how it is applied.

Re: Apple Disabling 'Sign in with Apple' for Epic Games on September 11

#120
post #23

So this showdown between Epic and Apple is really interesting. My thoughts: 1. Epic had to know Apple would go nuclear. If they didn't, they're completely incompetent. Let's assume that's not the case. So Epic was itching for a fight. Maybe they were delusional about Fortnite's power here? 2. Apple is going nuclear here. The message is that Apple wants to crush this. This is Apple making an example of Epic. It looks…

I think for the vast majority of developers the Apple payment ecosystem makes sense.

Considering that one can get payment processing for a tenth of Apple's fee, I consider Apple's 30% to be outright usurious. I would be a little more forgiving if that same fee bought some discovery in the App Store, but no. Or maybe faster app reviews. Okay, finally; after how many years of multiple week waits?

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