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

771–780 of 1001 posts

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

#771

Post by scarface_74 »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #668
scarface_74 wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now the truth. Adobe claimed that if Apple had let them, they could have gotten Flash running on the first iPhone that had 128Kb of RAM and a 400Mhz processor. Safari could barely run on the phone. If you scrolled fast, you would get a checkerbox while waiting for the page to render. When Adobe did finally bring Flash to mobile in 2010-2011 on Android, it required a 1Ghz processor and 1GB of RAM and it still ran b…

An Andoid user could actually afford a phone that could run flash.

Well, the high end phones in 2011 that could run Flash…badly… in 2011 were the same cost as iPhones.

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

#772

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #692
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of big companies that continue to produce and use open standards. In general it benefits them, because it's "commoditize your complement." Google sells advertising so they want web standards so that more things use the web and therefore Google ads. Intel sells server CPUs so they contribute to Linux to keep customers from being locked into proprietary Unix on proprietary RISC architectures. Doing the…

Oh sure. How compatible are IBM machines? They now run linux only because they simply have to. And so they do, in the least compatible way possible. Almost everyone tries to do this as much as possible, not just Apple. Initially everyone could make their own stuff 100% unique, hardware and software. Like the early HP machines, a total universe of their own. It's only over time that customers gradually insist on a few…

> How compatible are IBM machines?

What do you mean? You can install arbitrary third party Linux distributions like Ubuntu on IBM POWER hardware and they work fine.

Meanwhile they've been conceding most of the server market to Intel and AMD for a long time, because the OS is a commodity and then what matters is who makes the best processors, which isn't IBM.

> It's only over time that customers gradually insist on a few standards here and there after they get burned bad enough, and so some things get standard, but even then only incompletely and begrudgingly and always trying to find some way claw back or obsolete get around some other way.

That's what the walking dead platforms try to do when they're set on continuing to die. Milk every last dime out of the companies foolish enough to buy something that wasn't standardized to begin with.

Then their customers flee to open systems as soon as they can get out from under the lock-in and the legacy vendors, having ruined their own reputations, can't replace the customers they're losing and slowly bleed to death until they go bankrupt or get bought out.

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

#773

Post by password4321 »

zmmmmm wrote: post #687
matwood wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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/

Epic doesn't want those users. It is not asking for any placement in the app store. It just wants it's own users who have iPhones to be able to access its software which it will funnel to them through their own channel. Apple contributes nothing to cultivate the gaming market overall. No marketing, no investment, no PR, no subsidation of the hardware etc. Apple simply gets in the way, making it harder, adding restric…

> Apple contributes nothing to cultivate the gaming market overall.

https://www.apple.com/apple-arcade/

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

#774

Post by jorvi »

Terretta wrote: post #658
ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Epic also intentionally broke agreements with Apple before. This is funny to point out since they did it specifically to sue over it (you pretty much can't other wise). So Apple has their draconian 30% cut or there's literally no other way to have an application run on iOS policy, you can't challenge it without breaking it so you can sue, and because you broke it to sue you are now permanently barred from every maki…

> So Apple has their draconian 30% cut This notion that 30% is 'draconian' is curious since Steam -- on supposedly open PC -- costs devs more, and even 30% is wrong since it's not 30% below a certain revenue level or in the second year onwards, again in line or less than stores on other platforms.

If you don't like Steam's cut, you can go to Epic or GoG or Origin or Microsoft.

If you don't like Apple's cut, you couldn't (effectively still can't because of the absurd 1 000 000 installs/updates rule) go to any other storefront.

Before you bring up Xbox or Playstation: those devices are not essential computing devices. You can't function in modern society without access to both a computer and a smartphone. That puts a special burden on the companies that effectively own the software stack on those devices.

Not that I see it happen, but lets paint a PC horror scenario:

- Microsoft starts demanding to motherboard and laptop manufacturers to include their Pluton security chip

- Secure Boot can no longer be disabled

- They restructures the Windows kernel in such a way that DirectX is much faster than Vulkan

- They only allow games on the Microsoft Store access to DirectX 12.3 and 13

- Hell, _anything_ not installed from the Microsoft Store has dark-pattern warning pop-ups that make it both too confusing and too scary for the layman to install things from outside the store

- Microsoft also starts to demand a €0.50 fee from any developer that gets more than a million installs - with some updates counting towards installs. _This includes free applications_.

Do you see the problem now? Apple is essentially doing all of these things.

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

#775

Post by yesco »

causal wrote: post #352
bevekspldnw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the cracks will start to show the longer big apps don’t come to Vision Pro. Apple has spent the last decade pissing off developers and partners, and just when they need them the most - during the fragile time of getting an entire new platform off the ground - they are doubling down on being assholes. Every single review I’ve seen mentions that Netflix and YouTube aren’t on Vision Pro. One of the biggest appli…

Apple themselves seem to forget that a huge selling point for the iPhone/iPod Touch was video games. Seeing those bright flashy games rendering on such a beautiful screen in the palm of your hand- it blew everything else out of the water. Social media eventually took over as the killer apps, but for a while it was Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja on everyone's phone.

Epic's Infinity Blade got me to buy an iPod touch when I was in middle school

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

#776

Post by Gormo »

lamontcg wrote: post #636
wkat4242 wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, its really weird to appeal to the noble intentions of a corporation. They're both just engaged in business. This is what's wrong with the current overly capitalist system. Companies are totally allowed to have no conscience, and externalise whatever they please to consumers and the environment. And you could even argue they are 'forced' to do so by due diligence legislation. If we let this continue there will…

> Companies are totally allowed to have no conscience I don't think companies are going to form a conscience any time soon. We need to deal with the fact that they're best viewed as being inherently sociopathic and regulate them effectively.

Perhaps a better alternative would be to stop anthropomorphising abstractions, and not try to weirdly attribute intentionality, independent agency, or sociopathy to the same thing we're acknowledging is incapable of conscience because it isn't a person.

Corporations are organizational models employed by humans in pursuit of human motivations. They are not entities unto themselves. Everything is humans, all the way down.

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

#777

Post by tveita »

archagon wrote: post #711
zengid wrote: post #663

This is some spicy shit from Apple: > “In the past, Epic has entered into agreements with Apple and then broken them,” Schiller reminds the game maker in the letter dated February 23, 2024. “You also testified that Epic deliberately violated Apple’s rules, to make a point and for financial gain. More recently, you have described our DMA compliance as ‘hot garbage,’ a ‘horror show,’ and a ‘devious new instance of Mali…

If I'm an app developer, am I not allowed to complain about Apple's policies on social media?

At one point the official App Store guidelines outright included a threat to not complain publicly about Apple's policies, because why not.

"If your app is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps."

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1580732/000119312514...

They may have removed the text but there is still the silent understanding that they hold grudges.

It's incredibly petty and other companies should take lesson. Oil companies should refuse to sell you gas if you talk about global warming. Musk should disable your Tesla if you own him on Twitter.

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

#778

Post by RespectYourself »

lamontcg wrote: post #570
andersa wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Epic doesn't care whether Apple shows "grace", or needs them to, they are going in by force with the backing of the EU legislation. It might just take a year or two longer to get through the courts. They can hold out that long without any problems, preparing their store in the background.

Yeah, its really weird to appeal to the noble intentions of a corporation. They're both just engaged in business. I can believe that Apple is acting incredibly badly in this case without needing to fluff up Epic Games at all. Apple and Samsung could sue each other and do business with each other because the stakes were lower and they were more codependent.

Epic isn't squeaky-clean, but Apple is making dangerous and dumb decisions in this whole debate.

Banning third-party payments was one thing, but then Apple banned publishers from TELLING people about the ability to pay through a Web site.

That is not just unnecessary from a business standpoint (since the vast majority of people opt for the most convenient thing); but it's so offensive that it invites crackdowns, implemented by ignorant politicians and legislative bodies... hurting Apple's bottom line.

Apple is tarnishing its image and earning it a place among the true offenders of "big tech," a place it mostly doesn't belong because it's not a gatekeeper to huge swaths of the Internet and commerce the way Google, Amazon, and Meta are.

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

#779

Post by dugite-code »

whimsicalism wrote: post #540
Apocryphon wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've argued before that Apple should've semi-opened up iOS in a way that they could manage it to their interests. Now they've forced the hand of regulators to do it instead. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32170848

it didnt work for google, who is also in the sights of regulators despite having a considerbly more semi-open OS

It's arguable that one of the issues Android has in this regard is it has become less open as time goes by, making it look just as bad in regulatory eyes.

More locked down and more core functionality being put into proprietary apps in the play store in the name of timely updates, they could have achived the same effect with open source apps in the play store but chose not to.

Yes they are now quickly pivoting to allow side-loading to be simplified but if the EU wasn't cracking down on such things I imaging they would have eventually removed side loading in it's entirety.

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

#780

Post by raydev »

Despegar wrote: post #57

Epic perhaps thought Apple might show them grace after the lawsuit in the US. A kind of repeat of the Apple-Samsung litigation where everyone has a "it's just business" attitude and keeps doing business together while simultaneously suing each other. Apple on the other hand has decided they will show them no quarter. I don't think they're being emotional about it. I think it's to show every other developer that they…

> I don't think they're being emotional about it

It's hard to read it as anything but emotional. It's pure display of power, Apple is willing to hurt iOS users to make a point to other developers.

Post reply on HN