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Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

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Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#621

Post by darkwizard42 »

bob1029 wrote: post #543
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I see an app in the App Store that I might be interested in trying then I can download it and be pretty sure it's not malware, it does roughly what it's advertised as doing, and I can see from its price and the IAPs listed in the store whether it's reasonable value. By contrast every time my mum clicks a Facebook advert and downloads an app on her Android phone it makes her phone noticeably worse to use. Apple is…

I am still not seeing the argument relative to mine. If the ability to side load an app is not enabled by default, how would novice users accidentally install apps they may not have intended to?

Step 1: User clicks ad that says they can download this app super easily and improve their phone's battery performance.

Step 2: User clicks and navigates to a side-load page/alternate store.

Step 2a: Pop-up appears - please adjust your settings to enable access to this app

Step 3: User does so and now downloads malware.

Step 4: Gets upset and blames Apple or calls up their more tech informed Hacker-News-using family member and asks how to fix it.

(this genuinely happens with my mother and chrome extensions - she somehow CANNOT avoid those "search engine takeover" extensions no matter how much I try to educate her on how to avoid it)

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#622

Post by misnome »

arcticbull wrote: post #358
misnome wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on, I don't think anyone is pretending that this wasn't a deliberate provocation by Epic

I guess so, but so what? Deliberately provoking a potentially illegal act to litigate it is fair game. It doesn't legitimize the move by Apple, nor does it invalidate Epic's claim. If they want to play high-stakes poker, they better have good attorneys, but that's life in the American judicial system.

But... it does describe the difference between Netflix, which is what the thread is about?

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#623

Post by usui »

StevePerkins wrote: post #567
Waterfall wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you find him wrong about?

He has expressed skepticism that "willing participation" in pedophilia harms children. And given a couple of bizarre quotes on bestiality (essentially, "if the animal initiates it then what's the problem?"). More recently, he was pushed out of MIT and the FSF last year for questioning whether one of Jeffrey Epstein's victims was truly a victim or not. He prefers Emacs over Vim. There are probably other examples, but…

> He prefers Emacs over Vim

I wasn't expecting to laugh, haha. This is great, good stuff!

...But seriously why? How could such a thing be possible?! I would like to know his reasons.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#624

Post by victords »

pwinnski wrote: post #75
0x402DF854 wrote: post #23

From a preliminary statement of Epic's motion: > Just over two weeks ago, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook was asked during a Congressional hearing whether Apple has “ever retaliated against or disadvantaged a developer who went public about their frustrations with the App Store”. Mr. Cook testified, “We do not retaliate or bully people. It’s strongly against our company culture.”

Some might see a difference between "a developer who went public about their frustrations with the App Store" and a developer who deliberately violated the policies and then filed a lawsuit and started an extensive PR campaign.

It’s still retaliation. No way around that.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#625

Post by zamalek »

amaccuish wrote: post #97

What took me aback was the withdrawing permission to notarise their apps for Mac. That was only meant to be a check for known vulnerabilities/malicious software. Apple was more within their rights to kick Fortnite until the dust has settled from the iOS store, that was the retaliation, but now a mechanism supposedly for security has been repurposed as punishment. That's a pretty nasty move and I feel the mask has sli…

This seems way beyond the "hyper-competitive" excuse (that I didn't buy in the first place). Claiming control of the store is one thing, but they have locked Epic out of the platform entirely. This is shameless anticompetitive behavior.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#626

Post by m4rtink »

baddox wrote: post #267
brmgb wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The App Store's exclusivity is precisely the same as that of nearly every video game console. I don't understand why you keep bringing up video game consoles in this discussion. 1. You seem to believe people actually agree with the way console stores work. This is not the case. 2. The fact that the situation is also terrible somewhere else doesn't absolve Apple of anything. That's not how justice works.

If you are consistent in your claims and believe that all computing devices, including smartphones, game consoles, e-book readers, GPS watches, car entertainment centers, etc. should be required to provide a way for owners to run unsigned code, then my accusations of inconsistency do not apply to you. In fact, I see much much less vitriol aimed towards game console store policy than iOS App Store policy. That's why I…

And all these devices certainly should be able to run the code their owner wants them to run, full stop.

That this is often not possible is stupid but also incredibly dangerous. Not by the standards of the evil Apple just did, but what even more malicious actors can do to you is they can run code on your device & you can't do anything about it.

It could be state actors pressuring the company making the think & or exploiting vulnerabilities in the closed source firmware running on it.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#627

Post by floatingatoll »

kelnos wrote: post #570
floatingatoll wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic expressly snuck code through the door to activate a user-visible feature in direct prohibition to App Store rules. Apple could have revoked their developer certificate in response, which would have essentially killed all installations of Fortnite iOS/Mac worldwide within 24 hours. That they are merely revoking their ability to sign new code and giving them 2 weeks to perform an orderly shutdown is far less draco…

> Epic expressly snuck code through the door to activate a user-visible feature in direct prohibition to App Store rules. I don't think "snuck" is accurate. They did intentionally do it, but it was likely pretty obvious to the app reviewer. This was necessary, because you can't sue a company because they'll harm you for something you'd like to do, but haven't done yet. You have to do the thing, get harmed, and then s…

In two weeks, when the developer access goes away, so will all in-app purchase. I'm not sure whether Restore Purchases will work or not at that point. I don't think they're trying to avoid complaints, or they wouldn't have taken this step at all.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#628

Post by jimmydorry »

untog wrote: post #455
floatingatoll wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic expressly snuck code through the door to activate a user-visible feature in direct prohibition to App Store rules. Apple could have revoked their developer certificate in response, which would have essentially killed all installations of Fortnite iOS/Mac worldwide within 24 hours. That they are merely revoking their ability to sign new code and giving them 2 weeks to perform an orderly shutdown is far less draco…

> Notarization is about protecting users who are not capable of making an informed decision about code safety from developers who refuse to comply with Apple's terms of service. Epic willfully violated their terms with Apple to make a point, and Apple is responding in the same way that they did to Facebook: taking away their access to the users, because they cannot be trusted to comply with the restrictions placed on…

Imagine the wild west it would be if every app could redirect payment info to what ever their sketchy payment processor was.

I shudder at the thought.

I very much categorize Epic's actions in the "unsafe" basket.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#629

Post by m4rtink »

tapoxi wrote: post #298
donarb wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft can fire game developers from Xbox.

Xbox isn't central to modern life like a smartphone is. Also, the game consoles use a razor/blades model, they're sold at a loss and make money through the sale of games. Smartphones are not sold at a loss.

IIRC most modern consoles are no longer sold at a loss, though the margins are not very high.

Re: Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th

#630

Post by m4rtink »

heavyset_go wrote: post #536
mantap wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if Google decided tomorrow to ban App Stores other than Google Play Store on Android. This would mean that there's only two app stores: Apple's and Google's. Google doesn't do that because that would be an abuse of their market position and they would get rinsed in the courts. Since the same laws apply to Google as Apple, and Apple clearly has significant market power in smartphone and tablet computers, it st…

Google is abusing their market position as well, because they purposely hinder third party app stores by putting restrictions in Android that prevent them from implementing features that the Play Store has had for years.

A simple litmus test:

Is F-Droid in Google Play ?

It is not.

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