141–150 of 638 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One of those companies is going for a last ditch hail mary while facing financial ruin, and if they aren't successful, they will end up out of the hardware game.
This is news to me. Which one?
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…
They broke the TOS on purpose and are now crying about that Apple actually held the line. I think Apple is way overpriced too, but when you go into their ecosystem and profit on it - you have to play by the rules. If you break the rules, you get removed. I would expect the same treatment on any app store.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> destroy the console ecosystem by forcing them all to open up I'm not convinced that the console ecosystem would be destroyed if you forced them all to open up. Quite the contrary: I'd happily invest in consoles if I could build it myself with open hardware.
Did opening up destroy the PC market? No. But opening up another console market probably would destroy it; there's no reason to separate a hypothetical new PC market from the old PC market. So if you have a PC market and a PS4 market, and then you open the PS4, you have a PC market and another PC market, and then you just have the PC market.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe epic's point is that they believe the ToS to be illegal.
Then they should first fight it before breaking it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The discussion is not about Android at all, not sure why you brought them up?
Because if you don't pay the Apple tax, that's the alternative. But I don't want to switch. I want what I have now to be better. I think sign in with Apple is a great service, but not if Apple abuses it for their perverse power games. That's disgusting. You may think my comments towards Android are inflammatory but that's not my intent, because I don't root for either company. I'm simply looking after my own interest…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They broke the TOS on purpose and are now crying about that Apple actually held the line. I think Apple is way overpriced too, but when you go into their ecosystem and profit on it - you have to play by the rules. If you break the rules, you get removed. I would expect the same treatment on any app store.
I believe epic's point is that they believe the ToS to be illegal.
They should have sued and never have done their "pay direct" thing if they wanted to stay operational on Apple platforms during the lawsuit. Apple couldn't retaliate at that point since any termination attempt would be reversed by a court order.
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…
The courts aren't going to decide this case based on who is fighting for "the little guy" but whether the anti-competitive actions taken by Apple constitute a violation of civil or corporate law.
> I'm honestly surprised so many HN readers are siding with Epic
I'm not. If my only use case for an Apple device was to develop commercial software for Apple devices then I'd rather quit my job, go get a law degree and join Epic's legal team for no salary just to stick it to Apple.
But I am a consumer that owns apple devices and I derive value from their model of the universe and don't see how Epic's alternative universe where they charge a lower fee with a different mechanism would improve anything, either as a developer or user.
There are much more concrete things they could argue in court are harmful to consumers, like the fact that supporting MacOS and iOS targets costs enormous amounts of money compared to Windows and Linux due to the lack of (TOS compliant) solutions for targeting and testing for Apple's operating systems. But that wouldn't give Epic a win scenario that would allow them to bypass parental controls for microtransactions in a children's game.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A billion dollar company is completely necessary to tackle Apple. Absolutely not. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/22/apple-approves-hey-email-app...
It's a real stretch to look at what happened with Hey and think that they took on Apple and won. They re-engineered their app to fit in with Apple's terms offering a completely new service on the platform. And there were no changes to Apple's terms as a result of that, and no net benefit to any other developer. The only benefit that came out of the controversy over Hey was that Epic got another example incident they…
Hey got what they wanted, as did Apple. This is the way.
It's amusing that people think Epic is doing this for the good of anyone other than themselves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Unlike Apple, larger developers can use their market leverage to negotiate better rates, and many have, which is why you don't hear Epic or Rockstar complaining about MS or Sony. This point is key to the difference, since antitrust is about market interference. If market participants can use their own leverage to push back against another participant's market activities, then you don't have an antitrust violation. Ap…
Sony explicitly didn't allow for cross-play until 2 years ago [https://kotaku.com/sony-is-finally-allowing-cross-play-on-th...], even though it was technically possible before then [https://www.engadget.com/2017-06-24-rocket-league-cross-netw...]. In fact, the only reason Sony opened up to cross-play is due to pressure to stay competitive with rival platform Xbox. This was a take-it-or-leave it situation, but Sony was too big to leave. Nothing changed until Sony caved to social pressure.
If the argument is that Apple is a unique kind of device that Apple has a monopoly over, it would hard to argue that Sony and Microsoft don't enjoy the same monopoly powers. On the other hand, if argument is that it's easy enough to switch from Playstation to Xbox, then how is that different from buying a new phone?
In fact, I would bet that Epic sued Apple not because it's more monopolistic, but because they want to set a legal precedent that they can then apply to Playstation, Xbox and Switch, without threatening Epic's core business on consoles.