Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account

9to5mac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

591–600 of 653 posts

Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account

#591

Post by Hamuko »

snotrockets wrote: post #353
Hamuko wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Google or Mozilla release real versions of their browsers for iOS/iPadOS and offer long support for them, then I see it as a win. I've seen so many usable iPads turn into e-waste because Safari is out of date and can't be updated.

iOS Safari is the only thing that prevents a Chromium/Blink hegemony. A popular Chrome on iOS would be a return to the IE6 days (Firefox has such a minuscule market share, no one even notices it)

iOS Safari is also the only thing preventing those iPads from still serving a purpose.

Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account

#592

Post by maxhille »

rahkiin wrote: post #575
Moldoteck wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dma offers exactly that. Consumers can (or will be able to) choose to use apple defaults or not at any time of owning the device

As long as consumers can choose to download WhatsApp from the App Store and are then not forced to use some tracking Meta store. Dma is mostly about choice for a couple of developers. Not for users. No way will Epic publish games on their own and Apples store, they did not do it with the Epic Store either. Consumers did not have a choice where to buy when Epic bought exclusive access.

You make it sound as if the Apple App Store did not track you.

Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account

#593

Post by toyg »

bigfudge wrote: post #565
agust wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They had entirely removed support for PWAs. Putting them back was backing down. They will have to open them to other engines eventually.

It’s not clear that’s the case. Speculation on the HN thread when it happened was that there had been back channel talk with the EU to clarify that this wouldn’t be the case.

There are two sides to EU directive compliance: Commission action and legal action through the European Court of Justice.

Apple can talk to the Commission all they want and persuade them not to take action. However, they cannot bend the ECJ's ear. If someone forces the issue through the courts (yes, it's a slow procedure and yes the ECJ can choose not to pick up a case, but that's down to the skills of the involved legal heads), what will matter is the directive as written.

Apple will likely continue to drag their feet, but the outcome looks fairly inevitable. It might well come when we've all moved on to "AI, show me data" instead of using browsers, but it will very likely come.

Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account

#594

Post by asadotzler »

dwaite wrote: post #553
EMIRELADERO wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Article 6(7): > The gatekeeper shall allow providers of services and providers of hardware, free of charge, effective interoperability with, and access for the purposes of interoperability to, the same hardware and software features accessed or controlled via the operating system or virtual assistant listed in the designation decision pursuant to Article 3(9) as are available to services or hardware provided by the g…

So are you saying that Apple is not providing the same API to third party marketplaces as they leverage in their own App Store?

DING DING DING DING DING DING unless that was sarcasm. Then, cheers

Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account

#595

Post by rsynnott »

mike_d wrote: post #373
lxgr wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regulators did get involved: https://twitter.com/ThierryBreton/status/1765793776692326891

He tweeted something. There was some reporting he might have sent a letter asking questions too, the same as you or I could do. If any official action was taken it would have to be documented with a case: https://digital-markets-act-cases.ec.europa.eu/search

_Most_ regulatory enforcement, in practice, is “letters asking questions”. The formal cases you see are generally where the response to the letters was unsatisfactory.

(In some cases this is itself somewhat formalised.)

Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account

#596

Post by rsynnott »

mike_d wrote: post #538
vidarh wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is incredibly naive to suggest that someone with that power "sending a letter asking questions" would be remotely similar to you or I doing the same. The EU has an long tradition of "conversations" and "questions" with an unstated "give the right answer and you can avoid an unpleasant official action". You're right there is no official casework. That is also entirely irrelevant to the issue of whether or not Apple…

> "give the right answer and you can avoid an unpleasant official action" You are thinking of the mob. Thankfully here in the US official actions are generally done in view of the public.

Eh? No; the US works broadly the same. For instance, a rather amusing recent one: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/31/tesla-reportedly-facing-doj-...

The “probe” here would be, at least in the first instance, usually mostly letters asking questions. Note that it is “reportedly”; the media didn’t find this out because the DOJ had a banner on its website saying “we are investigating an alleged glass house”. That comes later, if things are not resolved.

Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account

#597

Post by toyg »

creativeSlumber wrote: post #577
EMIRELADERO wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much, plus to independent developers who wish to use the IPA installation off the web feature. (The Article speaks about "features", not just APIs) Remember that it says "free of charge". 50 cents/install past 1M installs is not free of charge now is it?

I can't understand the cost basis for that fee that apple is imposing. If I install an thrid party app from a third party store to my phone, it wouldn't cost apple anything. Even the bandwidth cost to download is from the third party store. In this transaction, actually Apple will be the unrelated "third party"that has nothing to do with that transaction. So isn't this fee just an extortion attempt?

There is no cost basis. It's just another way to making the point that, if you do anything serious on their platform, you owe Apple some serious cash. Extortion is a strong word, I prefer the more objective "parasitical rent-seeking".

Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account

#598

Post by rsynnott »

LeafItAlone wrote: post #395
agust wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the EU immediately stepped in and explained them what the consequences of breaking the law would be, and Apple budged, caved, backed down. Not getting out of this one.

That only makes sense if we assume Apple’s world class legal team didn’t see what every lay person could. Rolling back the decision is not going to get them out of the eyes of the regulators and they must have assumed that going into it. Why give the EU even more ammo against you. My guess is that they saw that all happening but Epic provided them a letter saying they double pinky promised, cross their hearts, will o…

Companies often push their luck with regulators, because sometimes it works, and, as here, the consequences for failure often aren’t significant. For practical purposes Apple’s back where they were a week ago; from their point of view why _not_ chance their arm?

Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account

#599

Post by kobalsky »

qeternity wrote: post #582
marticode wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would they force you to buy anything? If you don't want to use their store, then don't install it?

If you don't want to use Apple's store, then don't buy an iPhone?

if you don’t want EU laws applied to you don’t sell phones on that market.

Re: Epic says Apple will reinstate developer account

#600

Post by rsynnott »

amluto wrote: post #394
znpy wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft simply lacked the network effects Microsoft execs had their heads buried too deep in their own asses to be able to understand what was needed at the time. They pushed a platform (Windows phone) that lacked interesting features out of the box, lacked cloud services integration to fill the gap left by the lacking base features, and required Windows as a development platform (and, iirc, C# as well?). It didn…

I think there’s more to it than this, and it’s subtle: The iPhone was cool . Seriously, the original iPhone had little going for it technically. No GPS, poor data bandwidth, no apps, and minimal ability to make phone calls. (It took the combined efforts of Apple and AT&T a couple generations before you could reliably place a call.) But it had a touch screen that felt nice, and you could watch videos and play music! T…

Windows Phone (as opposed to Windows Mobile, which was basically moribund at the time the iPhone came out, and was replaced with the incompatible Windows Phone) wasn’t competing with the original iPhone; it came out shortly after the iPhone 4.

IMO the real problem with Windows Phone was the complete failure to produce an actual platform. Windows Phone 7 was incompatible with Windows Mobile, and _Windows Phone 8 was largely incompatible with Windows Phone 7_! The whole thing was comically developer hostile.

(Second mistake; Windows Phone 7’s UI ran at 30fps, presumably in an attempt to save battery. This made it feel a lot worse than iOS and Android.)

Post reply on HN