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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

#761

Post by woofie11 »

nodamage wrote: post #751
woofie11 wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the link you just posted? Seriously. It clearly states what I said, and contradicts what you said. As per YOUR LINK, you don't need a monopoly for antitrust; just "the ability to raise prices above those that would be charged in a competitive market." Apple unambiguously has this with their app store.

Not all antitrust violations require monopoly power, that is true. For example, price fixing is illegal even if the companies involved do not have monopoly power. However, several of the claims Epic made in their lawsuit do require proving that Apple has monopoly power, which is going to be a difficult argument with their current 46% market share.

Which ones? I only skimmed the case, but it looked like market power would suffice.

In either case, the standard legal approach is to throw the kitchen sink of claims, to see which ones stick. Most claims get rejected by the courts, but if you have a few that work, it's enough.

It also helps settle. If I have a dozen $10 million dollar claims, with a 5% chance of success each, a rational opponent will throw me $6 million to go away. If the parties settle, the kitchen sink approach is not a bad one to get a better settlement.

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

#762

Post by trynumber9 »

ulkesh wrote: post #754
bob1029 wrote: post #291

Can someone give me compelling reasons for disallowing side-loading of applications on iOS? Hypothetically, if side-loading were to be allowed it could be buried under a configuration+confirmation flag for security reasons just like with Android or Windows 10. Thinking more abstractly about this, I already do "sideload" iOS applications when I sign them with enterprise/developer certs and perform OTA installs from sy…

It’s very simple: support. Apple does not want to take any more needless support calls than they have to. When you run a trillion dollar company that handles, I would speculate, tens or hundreds of thousands of active support tickets, and consider adding in a virtually unsupportable mode in your appliance (keeping in mind that iPhones are considered an appliance to Apple), I would hope you would choose the sane optio…

I can "side load" my Mac too. And users know that if a 3rd party application fails or causes problems you don't call Apple. To me this line of thought doesn't hold up.

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

#763

Post by arvinsim »

oscargrouch wrote: post #535
ernst_klim wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We allow everyone to drive, use knives Ah, these are pretty simple things. We don't allow to sell any drugs, or some drugs without prescription, because drugs are hard and require education. So do computers.

The big question here is one simple thing: property. Imagine someone selling you a house and despite that you think you own the house the seller defines what things you can or cannot have in your own house, and even the ones he let you have, you must buy through them (so they can get a tax and force control) and if suddenly they are not ok with that anymore, it can simply vanish from your home. "Hey look, you cant ha…

The infantilization of users with regards to tech is profitable for a lot of companies.

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

#764

Post by AlexandrB »

As usual in these corporate pissing matches, those harmed are the customers. Neither Epic nor Apple come out looking particularly good. Epic's publicity stunt amounts to a marketing ploy and an attempt at hardball negotiation of app store terms. But it does put the negative aspects of Apple's tight-fisted control of iOS software into sharp focus and demonstrates why consumers should be wary of total platform control by a vendor.

Stuck in the middle is anyone who enjoys[1] playing Fortnite on their iPhone. I would love to see some kind of class action against both Apple and Epic if Fortnite becomes unusable on iOS as a result of this contract dispute.

[1] Disclaimer: I think Fortnite sucks, but customers don't deserve to be used as pawns in a contract negotiation.

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

#765

Post by minedwiz »

buzzerbetrayed wrote: post #741
jjeaff wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You talk like this is some unique problem. This has been solved for a long time. Warranties have terms of service. If your car is under warranty and the engine fails due to a defect, warranty covers it. If your engine fails because you drove it into a river, then the warranty don't cover it and you'll pay out of pocket for repairs.

So you're effectively saying that Apple must allow a user to install malware (likely unintentionally), but then Apple is also responsible for paying to fix it? I feel like I have to be misunderstanding you because that makes no sense.

What it seems like they're saying is that Apple should operate like a car manufacturer, wherein if you put some aftermarket shite in your engine, you can't get a warranty service, and likewise if you don't do your due diligence with what you put on your PC, Apple should be able to deny service.

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

#766

Post by AlexandrB »

tfigment wrote: post #743
jachee wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends. Does the sale require me to submit payment details to a not-already-trusted platform? The change remotely triggered by Epic redirects users to a third-party (Epic) payment system, but what if it were, say, a malicious Epic insider? How much user payment info/cash could they grab before they were detected and disabled?

They actually gave 2 options. If you didnt trust the game maker and their discount you could continue paying the premium to Apple directly and continue feeling safe.

It's funny that this choice wasn't "offered" to console users who got the 20% discount even as 30% still went to Sony/Microsoft. The two-tier pricing on iOS was purely a stunt and had nothing to do with Epic's costs.

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

#767

Post by causality0 »

grishka wrote: post #280
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…

And so that's why I never liked nor trusted this whole idea of code signing with non-self-signed certificates, especially on desktop OSes. This notarization mechanism introduced a single point of failure: Apple. And now there is concrete evidence of how exactly this is bad. On a device I own, there should be no parties that are trusted more than myself. It's ridiculous I even have to write this.

I'm forcibly reminded of how one jackass forgetting to renew a certificate stripped almost every Firefox installation on earth of all its extensions, resulting in probably thousands of malware infections and possible identity theft.

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

#768

Post by AlexandrB »

zamalek wrote: post #632
quotha wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear ya, but something smells real bad about how Epic decided to wage this war. They were clearly picking this fight, now I am not sure that was such a good idea.

It's impossible to truly know their motives (although money is the most likely candidate). I usually judge these things on a personal/consumer level: "Who is fighting for the consumer?" Epic. It doesn't matter their motives. Apple is aggressively anticonsumer and it's time someone took them on. They keep handing out concessions for big players, while hurting newcomers. It's time for it to stop.

> "Who is fighting for the consumer?" Epic. It doesn't matter their motives.

Epic is using their customers as pawns in a contract dispute with a platform vendor (Apple). How else do you explain that console customers got the full 20% discount on "V-bucks" despite Sony/Microsoft still taking their 30% cut? Epic is basically selling V-bucks at a premium on iOS if you choose not to give Epic your credit card information. This is not a pro-consumer stance, it's a pro-Epic stance.

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

#769

Post by kalleboo »

zeroimpl wrote: post #516
Hamuko wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it's fucked up if Apple is going to start disabling macOS apps regardless of distribution if the developer has violated their App Store rules in some way. Definitely undermines my trust in macOS.

They are also being sued by Epic. Would you keep doing business with a company suing you?

You shouldn't require a business relationship in order to publish software on a general purpose computing platform.

macOS was always a general purpose computing platform, anyone could publish software for it.

iOS has not been seen as a general purpose computing platform, merely "a phone", and hence Apple's tight control has been seen as justifiable.

Apple added notarization of software to macOS last year, and in response to fears that this was another step on the path of "iOS-ification" of macOS, promised that it was not going to be used for anything but to stop bona-fide malware.

This stunt shows that that was bullshit, and the iOS-ification of macOS is complete. macOS is no longer a general purpose computing platform, it is now also a software console, with Apple as a gatekeeper.

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

#770

Post by slaymaker1907 »

sneak wrote: post #755
ifmpx wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but for how long.

I expect development, offline, (and thus execution of novel/unsigned binaries) to remain possible on ARM Macs, so for at least the foreseeable future. People have been claiming the iOS-style trusted/treacherous computing cancer will hit macOS “any day now” for most of a decade at this point, and it’s still not even on the horizon.

They just have to make it so dev builds are self signed but allow installing that certificate on a machine. Complicated enough to keep out normal users while still allowing developers to do their jobs.

This would be horrific of course, but I could totally see them doing this.

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