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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
#592[flagged]
Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS
#593[flagged]
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Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS
#594Wondering how this affects Apple employees. Back in the day, working for Apple seemed cool. (Pirate flags on building etc). Previously MSFT used to be (maybe they've turned that around?) the most hated tech company (becz of their very aggressive attitudes to competitors especially Netscape). One thing they didn't FU and is represented by the infamous sweaty Balmer video [0] of him shouting "Developers, developers, de…
From working at apple, I remember that most engineers just work hard to make good hardware and software. I've heard very few mentions of what anyone outside of apple thinks of it
Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS
#595[flagged]
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Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS
#596If I had a Customer that spent years relentlessly complaining about my Company, I know I wouldn't want to have them as a Customer. It does present an interesting question on whether a Company can be forced to have a bad actor as a Customer, I guess this will be decided in the lawsuits to come.
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…
Everyone who publishes software that runs on iOS devices is an Apple customer, though. This isn’t the same thing as a browser — apps running on iOS devices consume APIs on the device, utilize Apple services, etc.
Also, when it comes to web apps, in most cases, the developers are also customers of the browser vendors -- from using browser developer tools and SDKs, for example, https://www.google.com/chrome/dev/ , https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/ , and https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/?form=M... to name three. Safari’s dev tools etc. you get with your Apple Dev subscription.
And those browser vendors, like Apple, also provide developer training, developer support services, early access to upcoming product versions, opportunities to provide input into future product designs and features, etc.
In other words, this is not a problem, much less the “core problem”. This is normal industry practice. In fact, on some platforms, there are royalty fees due for the SDK runtime components that are required to run the software a third party developer provides. Just look at mainframes — you might buy XYZ Accounting system from them, and have to pay an additional annual license payment for the cobol runtime it requires.
That fact, by the way, is what the half a Euro per ‘download’ technology fee is about. Part of the DMA requires separation of the “app store fee” from the fee for using iOS services.
It’s also important to note, when people talk about the 30% app store fee as being high — the app store is essentially the same thing as a retail store. Back in the days when you bought software in a physical store, rather than downloading it, the margin at the retail level ranged between 30% and 50%. E.g., we would pay the distributor $25 and sell it for $49.99. The distributor in turn would buy the software in bulk from the manufacturer, for somewhere around $20-$22.
Software developers get a lot bigger share of what the consumer pays in the current model. Some, however, are greedier than others, and leverage governments to their advantage. Epic Games doesn’t want any competition - they want to be the sole retailer of Fortnite on all platforms so that they can raise the price to whatever they want.
Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS
#597Earlier quoted context omitted.
More likely, Apple needs to withdraw entirely from the EU and see what happens.
What will happen if they exit the EU? They will loose more revenue and tank their stock and Tim Apple will get the boot ad EU users will move to Samsungs, Pixels and Nokias and life will go on. You're acting like the EU is some poor country in the outback and not their second biggest market after the US. Or better yet, we fork Android and have a non-Google EU-only appstore similar to Huawei's Andorid fork OS and apps…
> Or better yet, we fork Android and have a non-Google EU-only appstore similar to Huawei's Andorid fork OS and appstore but with EU's privacy rules.
No one would use it and no developers would publish to them. All brands have their own appstore already, but no one uses them so they also all ship with the Google app store.
Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS
#598I just finished the last episode of The Talk Show podcast, where John Gruber says that Apple doesn’t hold a grudge and is only doing things because they make business sense. He said that because Apple approved Epic’s account and that they would be allowed their own App Store. I already that it was a bad take, but this shows it.
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Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS
#599Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is about Epic having access to the EU market.
That’s why it’s a Pyrrhic victory. They have access to the EU market which is much less profitable than the US market.
Pyrrhic implies that the battle is over. I see it more as a foothold for a much longer battle. I'm sure North America and Asia aren't ignoring this whole ordeal.
It should also be noted that this article specifically talks about Epic's Sweden AB account being banned. It doesn't affect the state of the US account (which may very well be banned anyway).
Re: Apple terminates Epic Games developer account, calling it a 'threat' to iOS
#600Earlier quoted context omitted.
The key difference I see in Apple's app store business is that it's a monopolistic marketplace model. If Apple allowed an alternative to the app store then this wouldn't be an issue. Take Microsoft and Windows as an example, they have the Microsoft store which operates as a marketplace with rules but they don't get the same scrutiny because there are alternatives. Don't like what MS is doing with their app store? Fin…
> Don't like what MS is doing with their app store? Fine just release the binary yourself. Whip up a small windows binary and send it to your mom. See if she can run it without any help from you. MS is doing the same thing from a different angle.
* Signed .exe works but has a cost.
* Unsigned .exe gets a security prompt to Run/Don't Run for the first time.
* MSI has an installation wizard.
* MSIX has a simple Install prompt like PWAs.