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

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

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 1001 posts

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

#601

Post by freedomben »

Phrodo_00 wrote: post #401
threeseed wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's still Apple's platform. And they have a right to prevent apps that harm the integrity of the overall platform which is what notarisation is designed to prevent. Also companies have always charged a fee for using their SDKs. Even today Epic does this i.e. 12%.

> Because it's still Apple's platform. It's not Apple's devices, though.

As long as Apple has a higher level of access to the device than the user does, it's still Apple's device. They've just done a great job at making the user think they own it.

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

#602

Post by Seanambers »

mdhb wrote: post #559
cheeze wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers aren't forced to write any apps. They write apps where the revenue makes sense. And the revenue makes the most sense on ios for a large share of developers. 95%+ of developers don't care if Apple doesn't allow Epic on their store. That's just reality. If my boss tells me "we're launching an ios app" I'm not going to tell him about how I disagree with Apples principles and refuse to build it.

No but a lot will start building PWAs wherever they can instead because they no longer need to write an entire second copy of their app that only runs in one place and can’t share code and they don’t have to just pay 30% of their revenue to someone for no good reason. Trust me, Apple pissing off developers is absolutely going to have serious implications for them.

Then they should just code for Android, stay there and leave us in the Apple Ecosystem alone.

I have no effin need for a second store, or a third or a fifth.

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

#603

Post by johnnyanmac »

hizanberg wrote: post #18

If 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.

Depends on the ruling and laws. I'm sure someone who didn't allow homosexual couples would not want to welcome them even after it was ruled as unconstitutional to discriminate to them in the US (even if they are middle eastern and laws in their homeland do allow for that). They were technically rowdy customers but the law allows them to be in as long as their rowdiness was due to their identity and not other neutral actions (although we know they will be judged much more harshly on those actions as an attempt to disciminate).

A bit of a crude comparison, but I hope it gets the point across that the behavior depends. retaliating against rules that the EU later determines to be bad rules may open a case to allow them, as long as they don't break other rules.

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

#604

Post by gigel82 »

hizanberg wrote: post #18

If 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.

Epic isn't Apple's customer. Apple is just the local (techno)feudal lord / rentier wanting to tax all merchants trying to sell goods to Apple's serfs.

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

#605

Post by [deleted] »

vlod wrote: post #529

Wondering 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…

[deleted]

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

#606

Post by heisenbit »

hizanberg wrote: post #18

If 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.

If one stretches ones leverage to the point where it is considered by authorities as excessive and is forced to make concessions one is not in the position to attack those who attacked ones monopolistic behavior. The technical term is is "sitting in a glass house" and while one figures out the layout of the panels one is advised to refrain from throwing rocks.

The way I see it Apple is lumping past behavior and current behavior of Epic together to make an exclusion decision. But there was a big change between the past and now so the market situation has changed and access to this changed market should not overly depend on information from a very different world otherwise it can be considered at best arbitrary or an attempt to exclude competitors with irrelevant facts. The latter could get expensive.

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

#607

Post by matwood »

ajross wrote: post #58
amluto wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> c.f. having essentially missed the boat on AI What boat? Not being first to market with a fancy commercial-grade model and charging $20/mo for consumer-style access (a la OpenAI)? Not having a cloud offering (MS, etc)? Not having a fancy in-your-pocket AI (like… no one? Siri is behind the times, and a better Siri would be great, but IMO the issue isn’t so much the quality of the language model but that Siri is oddl…

AI is producing shareholder value like crazy. No, that's not the same thing as a new market, exactly, but it speaks to the same need in the C suites. Apple didn't get on that boat, and so is being forced into squeezing their partners and fighting in the trenches on essentially unwinnable regulatory points just to preserve the illusion of growth. AI is a much more effective illusion of growth!

The did mention AI 12 times in the PR announcing the updated MBA earlier this week.

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

#608

Post by StrLght »

mdhb wrote: post #559
cheeze wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers aren't forced to write any apps. They write apps where the revenue makes sense. And the revenue makes the most sense on ios for a large share of developers. 95%+ of developers don't care if Apple doesn't allow Epic on their store. That's just reality. If my boss tells me "we're launching an ios app" I'm not going to tell him about how I disagree with Apples principles and refuse to build it.

No but a lot will start building PWAs wherever they can instead because they no longer need to write an entire second copy of their app that only runs in one place and can’t share code and they don’t have to just pay 30% of their revenue to someone for no good reason. Trust me, Apple pissing off developers is absolutely going to have serious implications for them.

I am not sure I follow.

What was stopping companies from doing PWAs before? Were they not annoyed at 30% cut? Was the cost of maintaining a separate app for a single platform too small to care about?

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

#609

Post by wkat4242 »

Ummm lol. So now sideloading is allowed (with lots of costs associated mind you) and if someone wants to use it Apple will just kick them off the platform? :')

So first malicious compliance with all the inflated costs and then they don't even allow people to use it. I really hope the EU will crack down on this BS and force Apple to allow real sideloading.

But anyway I've written Apple out of my life a long time ago.

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

#610

Post by smoldesu »

matwood wrote: post #586
zmmmmm wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good question. From the EU point of view it may be simply one of scale. If any of those held the amount of market power Apple does, I suspect the EU would designate them Gatekeepers and we would be off to the races. From the games publisher point of view, the console manufacturer is actually adding significant value and taking a fair (or not so fair) margin in exchage. Apple detracts value, contributes nothing…

> contributes nothing Other than cultivating a base of iOS users spending 7x more than Android users on apps[1]. That sounds like significant value to me and not dissimilar to what the console manufacturers pitch to developers. [1] https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/06/iphone-users-spend-apps/

> Other than cultivating a base of iOS users spending 7x more than Android users on apps[1].

Those iOS users certainly aren't spending 7x more on AppleTV and iTunes albums. It's because of third-parties that Apple can convince users to spend money in the first place.

> That sounds like significant value to me and not dissimilar to what the console manufacturers pitch to developers.

If console manufacturers had the hardware margins Apple did, they wouldn't be console manufacturers anymore.

Post reply on HN