Amazing how fast this decision was reversed. It's truly awesome to see regulators standing up to walled gardens. This will greatly benefit both developers and consumers.
From the article > “Following conversations with Epic, they have committed to follow the rules, including our DMA policies. As a result, Epic Sweden AB has been permitted to re-sign the developer agreement and accepted into the Apple Developer Program.”
Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account
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Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account
#362At least it is now completely obvious that Apple is "verifiably untrustworthy" as a gatekeeper for third party stores.
It really hurts to watch Apple shoot themselves in the foot like this. A time will come when Apple will have legitimate reasons to crack down on third-party app stores. Someone like Meta will invariably try some crap like sneaking VPNs into their apps so they can get complete surveillance on their users (ex. https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/ ). Apple is going to have less credibility when they…
Instead of letting Apple make and enforce the rules, we should have laws in place that hold App Stores accountable for what they are selling, just like physical stores.
Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account
#363Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aside from their spectacular laptops with arm, they seem like they are being left behind. Vision Pro is probably a gimmick along with the whole VR world right now, which will change soon too but overall I don't see anything exciting about apple. Their pricing is infuriating and so are their decisions (laptop 8gb ram in 2024???) To me it looks like they got stuck in the "this is what worked for us, so let's only do th…
They missed AI along with everyone else except for OpenAI and MS. But, it's hard to say they're being left behind when they have products that are the defining product of the category. Obviously there's the iPhone, but also AirPods, iPad, and Apple Watch. And the ARM changeover in the laptops has been so seamless, people seem to ignore the huge risks with switching architectures. And now everyone is chasing them for…
After a life on windows and some periods on linux, apple managed to refine their os and hardware to the point where I can say, it doesn’t get in the way and it “just works”, which, I think, is what most professionals want.
Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account
#364Earlier quoted context omitted.
You 1 minute ago: > All sides are marketing You 10 seconds ago: Nah, only one side is marketing.
Marketing isn’t limited to ads. Obviously.
Such as Tweets: https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic
Blogposts: https://www.epicgames.com/site/en-US/free-fortnite-faq
Press junkets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKsNf5bA1bU
World-wide ad campaigns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPn_PGuYesw
In-game events: https://www.polygon.com/fortnite/2020/8/13/21367955/fortnite...
So how have Epic performed when the facts were before a judge? hmmm. Looks like the marketing worked on some.
Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account
#365Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an example of vendor lockin, which is a troubling practice that needs to be stopped, but it is legally and practically distinct from monopoly as defined in antitrust legislation.
We shouldn't limit our use of language based on laws written 100 years ago. It's pretty clear that those laws are inadequate to restrain the monopolies that exist now. Said another way, you might be right about US antitrust law, but when that law was written the technology didn't exist to create "vendor lock-in" on millions of products at once. I am curious about the example though, from a legal perspective. Would th…
Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account
#366Between this and the PWA decision, Apple seems to be flailing. What is leadership doing?
Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account
#367Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the article > “Following conversations with Epic, they have committed to follow the rules, including our DMA policies. As a result, Epic Sweden AB has been permitted to re-sign the developer agreement and accepted into the Apple Developer Program.”
This is Apple's propaganda to try and save face. What happened is the EU stepped in and explained to them what the consequences of breaking the DMA would be. Apple backed down, like they did a week ago with PWAs.
Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account
#368Amazing how fast this decision was reversed. It's truly awesome to see regulators standing up to walled gardens. This will greatly benefit both developers and consumers.
Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account
#369Between this and the PWA decision, Apple seems to be flailing. What is leadership doing?
Culture is a very hard thing to change at any company, including in the face of existential threats. Look at what's happening at Google with AI. "We are a walled garden and will not interoperate or tolerate alternatives" is in Apple's DNA, and no decision maker at any level at the company will risk suggesting otherwise for fear of being branded a traitor, even if it is a very good idea.
We are a walled garden and will not interoperate or tolerate alternatives"
No. Before Apple got their monopoly they absolutely begged developers, even tried to shame them, for not developing for MacOS. They evened threatened lawsuits against Microsoft.Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account
#370Between this and the PWA decision, Apple seems to be flailing. What is leadership doing?
There's an observation that computer programs tend to reflect the organizational structures of the company that developed them. I would go further and argue that company cultures are a reflection of the founders that built them.
In the case of Apple, Steve Jobs was an emotionally manipulative psychopath that was very good at conning people, making anyone he talked to buy into his bullshit. When he didn't get his way, he'd cry like a child and throw tantrums. Everyone at Apple absolutely lionized the shit out of Jobs, even during the interregnum period where the company was being torn apart by idiots. All of the upper management was his own hand-picked successors, who have largely continued doing exactly what Jobs was doing, just with higher scale.
The world largely did not notice this because the actual product (at least, when Jobs was actually in the driver's seat) was good. Part of the capitalist social contract is that we don't care about how the sausage was made so long as we aren't assuming the risk[0]. But this is still very much a religious cult that just so happens to be shaped like a for-profit corporation, run by people who were hand-picked by its dogmatic, emotionally unstable founder[1]. It just so happens to also employ actual geniuses.
In the Apple religion, there are commandments, and one of them is "thou shalt not install unauthorized third party software, for it is the malware of the beast". Like other religions, the commandments are based in some kind of plausible system of rules, we can absolutely Chesterton's Fence them, but that rationale has been forgotten by true believers who take them to axiomatic extremes. Apple is not exactly going to die on this hill[2], but they are going to try to make the system as restrictive as possible within the DMA's constraints, because they've RDF'd[3] themselves into thinking their greed is protecting users.
[0] Also, most of the people Jobs really fucked over were the kinds of people society did not care so much about in the 1980s.
[1] This also applies to the FSF, except it's rules are "thou shalt not bind the user to your tech cult". It's an anti-cult cult.
[2] Though I've had the urge to make fake sales pages for an Apple Nuclear weapons program and photoshop the words "POOR IMPULSE CONTROL" on Tim Apple's head.
[3] Reality Distortion Field, not Resource Description Framework