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Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

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Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#501

Post by jsnell »

threeseed wrote: post #448
jsnell wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have any other companies announced credible plans for a competing app store? I'm at least not aware of any, which would absolutely make Epic their main competitor. It is pretty hilarious how people think some US court judgement would have any relevance on EU anti-trust regulation.

I think you're confused how this works. Apple doesn't need a court judgement to terminate a contract. They can just do it if they believe terms have been broken. Epic sued them in the US to reverse this decision and the courts found in favour of Apple. The process in the EU starts the same way. And this is a basic contractual dispute seperate from the DMA which is why the many other parties have not also had their co…

Well, yes, clearly I think you're confused about how this works given you keep thinking that a US court ruling is going to overrule the DMA on EU soil.

The entity that Epic will be complaining to about this will not be a US court. It will be the EC. The EC will look at the text and the intent of the DMA: to permit competing app stores. They'll also note that Apple has (arbitarily and without any technical justification) made a developer account a requirement for launching a competing app store. And finally, they'll note that Apple is terminating the developer accounts of the company most vocal about intending to launch a competing app store.

It doesn't matter what text Apple has in their contract about how they're permitted to close developer accounts for any reason they want to. It doesn't matter that they have a courting ruling from some other country. Apple chose to gatekeep app store competition on membership in the developer program. To prevent this from being used as an end-run on the DMA, the EC just an't allow Apple to terminate the licenses on a flimsy pretext. And "Tim Sweeney tweeted mean things about us" is not going to work.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#502

Post by bsimpson »

SllX wrote: post #419
jsnell wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 12. The gatekeeper shall apply fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory general conditions of access for business users to its software application stores, online search engines and online social networking services listed in the designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9). Apple don't get to deny access to their main competitor in this space just as a show of force. That is not fair, reasonable or non-discrimina…

Epic also intentionally broke agreements with Apple before. Non-discriminatory doesn’t mean they have no grounds to terminate Epic’s developer accounts, and Epic is continuing to make themselves look untrustworthy by trying to publicly and explicitly shank Apple. Spotify is also trying to shank Apple in all the same places Epic is, but they also didn’t go behind Apple’s back to deceive the prior review process in con…

Epic does have a history as an app store. They are the main competitor to Steam on Windows, famous for giving away games every week to drive traffic.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#503

Post by threeseed »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #463
SllX wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic also intentionally broke agreements with Apple before. Non-discriminatory doesn’t mean they have no grounds to terminate Epic’s developer accounts, and Epic is continuing to make themselves look untrustworthy by trying to publicly and explicitly shank Apple. Spotify is also trying to shank Apple in all the same places Epic is, but they also didn’t go behind Apple’s back to deceive the prior review process in con…

>Epic also intentionally broke agreements with Apple before. This is funny to point out since they did it specifically to sue over it (you pretty much can't other wise). So Apple has their draconian 30% cut or there's literally no other way to have an application run on iOS policy, you can't challenge it without breaking it so you can sue, and because you broke it to sue you are now permanently barred from every maki…

> This is funny to point out since they did it specifically to sue over it (you pretty much can't other wise).

This is simply wrong.

Many have sued Apple over the legalities of the development agreement over the decades. They just always lose.

And Epic could've chosen to follow Spotify and lobby behind the scenes but instead chose the PR move.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#504

Post by paulmd »

Zambyte wrote: post #482
paulmd wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't need a developer account to sideload an app on ios, and it wouldn't change anything legally if you did (feature tiering is legal) another classic example of android users who don't understand the things they're talking about. go on, tell me more about how "you can't copy and paste between applications in ios" or "there's not even a file browser" please. (now, still not being able to figure out a calculator…

I didn't believe you so I looked it up, and this[0] is what I found > AltStore then signs the application with your Apple ID so the app can run. You'll need to trust the developer certificate in your device settings, but when you do, any apps that you install through AltStore will work... for seven days. Apple has put several restrictions in place to make the process as difficult as possible, but the developer manage…

[flagged]

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#505

Post by lostlogin »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #171
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> execs could go to jail instead of just their company paying fines as if they're parking tickets? You want to send an executive to jail for cancelling a contract? I’d be curious for a jurisdiction to try this. In my opinion, I wouldn’t want to do business in a place where commercial disputes can be twisted by a political insider into jail time.

Fair enough, no jail time then but how about the personal liability in money. You fuck up, it's your own money you gotta pay with, not the company's bottomless war-chest.

> You fuck up, it's your own money you gotta pay with, not the company's bottomless war-chest.

Sort of good and sort of bad - some percentage of the time this would lead to zero money changing hands as the executive is bankrupt or has no assets.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#506

Post by hu3 »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #34
andersa wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their terms are not relevant, Apple has no authority over the DMA.

so if I set up my own app store with nothing but apps designed to scam people, Apple has to allow me to do it?

App Store is already rampant with scams so nothing new under the sun.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/06/apple-a...

https://mashable.com/article/apple-mac-app-store-scam-forces...

https://tech.hindustantimes.com/tech/news/84-dangerous-scam-...

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#507

Post by madeofpalk »

yakkityyak wrote: post #430
layer8 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that Epic doesn’t want to be Apple’s customer in the first place. They want to publish iOS apps. The fact that this requires them to be an Apple customer is the core problem. Imagine if everyone wanting to publish a web app would have to be a customer of the respective browser vendors. Everyone complains about Google and Mozilla and Safari and Edge. Luckily, that doesn’t prevent us from having our web ap…

I don’t quite understand why they happily subscribe to this model with Xbox PlayStation and Nintendo, but are adamant about getting their way with Google and Apple.

Game developers and console makers tend to have a much cosier relationship because they actually care about each other. Console makers will engage in co-marketing deals or other things to entice and make good on their relationship.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#508

Post by layer8 »

threeseed wrote: post #383
layer8 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that Epic doesn’t want to be Apple’s customer in the first place. They want to publish iOS apps. The fact that this requires them to be an Apple customer is the core problem. Imagine if everyone wanting to publish a web app would have to be a customer of the respective browser vendors. Everyone complains about Google and Mozilla and Safari and Edge. Luckily, that doesn’t prevent us from having our web ap…

You are in many respects a customer of the browser vendors. They can choose at any point to harm your business e.g. Apple restricting first party cookies.

That’s a lot closer to a desktop OS update possibly breaking your software. This doesn’t make you a customer of Windows/macOS/Linux.

If an OS vendor would target a specific software that way, however, that also would likely have legal consequences.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#509

Post by zarzavat »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #475
Zambyte wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that Apple (the 3rd party in the interaction between you and the developer) has a say at all in what people do with their computers at all is already egregious. I couldn't imagine letting someone else control my computers like that.

It's enough of an issue where I honestly don't understand how a single user on a site called 'hacker'news could be okay with it. Imagine if you couldn't run software of your choosing on Windows either. And the only way to publish an app on Windows was to agree to give Microsoft 30% of everything. That's the exact behavior your enabling by using Apple products.

The thing is, we all have laptops within our vicinity most of the time.

The people who are really affected by these policies are the normal people who don’t own computers. For many people their phone is their one and only computing device.

Especially for kids, if I had grown up with only an iPhone I doubt I would have become a programmer.

Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS

#510

Post by akira2501 »

lxgr wrote: post #61
Despegar wrote: post #57

Epic perhaps thought Apple might show them grace after the lawsuit in the US. A kind of repeat of the Apple-Samsung litigation where everyone has a "it's just business" attitude and keeps doing business together while simultaneously suing each other. Apple on the other hand has decided they will show them no quarter. I don't think they're being emotional about it. I think it's to show every other developer that they…

Parts of Apple's DPLA are likely unenforceable in the EU going forward.

Attempting to enforce an "illegal" contract provision seems pretty "emotional" to me. Apple is finally in a position to lose their monopoly grip on a platform software store, and they clearly will stop at nothing to stop the loss of that revenue, this is obviously an existential problem for them.
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