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

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

#781

Post by letsdothisagain »

Gormo wrote: post #776
lamontcg wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 do…

Corporate personhood means that legally they are. If we stripped that away and let the board of governors go to jail for doing blatantly illegal stuff, then they might stop being sociopathic.

I'd also like a pony.

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

#782

Post by raydev »

yakkityyak wrote: post #430
layer8 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that Epic doesn’t want to be Apple’s customer in the first place. They want to publish iOS apps. The fact that this requires them to be an Apple customer is the core problem. Imagine if everyone wanting to publish a web app would have to be a customer of the respective browser vendors. Everyone complains about Google and Mozilla and Safari and Edge. Luckily, that doesn’t prevent us from having our web ap…

I don’t quite understand why they happily subscribe to this model with Xbox PlayStation and Nintendo, but are adamant about getting their way with Google and Apple.

Apple provides a general purpose computing device. Their big mistake was offering an App Store that allows developers nearly every type of app for nearly every use case (except for the ones Apple doesn't like, but Apple can ignore them and not lose money).

If Apple had run it more like MS or Sony, the only way to get on the platform would be for developers to spend millions of dollars making their case that they deserve to be on the platform. This is obviously very limiting.

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

#783

Post by mrtksn »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #768
mrtksn wrote: post #45

I wonder why Apple doesn't open up their platforms to have everything best on their devices instead of fighting and agonising developers and governments. Yes yes, the commission is nice but they might be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. I mean, Apple is amazingly good in some areas but in some other areas their products are used only because they don't give a choice and they intent to keep it this way. Th…

> embracing the industry standards The iPhone has legendary levels of crapitude. Consider every app you use on the iPhone that is authored by Apple. Would you or its stakeholders still use it if you weren't forced to? Mail? Calendar? Safari? Photos? Music? Fucking Messages? No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't misunderstand me. I am talking about access to the exact same first party APIs and integrations Apple's software ha…

Safari, Photos and Music are apps that I legitimately like and enjoy using. I wouldn't use anything else.

I'm generally happy iPhone user. From Apple's offerings, the one I don't like is iCloud because lacks any granularity whatsoever. I want my photos synced but I don't want to waste my space and bandwidth with the videos.

I also would like to have full API access to everything so I can experiment with stuff. Also I want to be able to re-purpose my old iPhone but its too much locked down for the things I would like to do.

However, I'm generally very pleased. I can't stand the Android experience, honestly.

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

#784

Post by ThatPlayer »

StrLght wrote: post #608
mdhb wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Lack of support from Apple's monopoly iPhone browser engine Safari. It didn't even get notification support until 2 years ago. And then there was a recent attempt by Apple to remove PWAs altogether from iOS: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39299007

Apple was and is stopping companies from doing PWAs.

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

#785

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

wkat4242 wrote: post #614
lamontcg wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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…

Most senior leaders I've experienced are preserving profits so they can maintain headcount. Is it without conscience to make sure thousands of people retain jobs? Even if it's ego driven it's still mutually beneficial.

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

#786

Post by johnnyanmac »

dwaite wrote: post #731
johnnyanmac wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logistically speaking: By the time the dust settles on such lawsuits, the next generation is here while the companies can use whatever loopholes to stall out for another generation. Consoles are so ephemeral in the grand scheme of things, and lawsuits take so long, that it's not worth it. Meanwhile, mobile OS's have been around for 15+ years and seem to be there for the long run. Playing the long game makes sense. --…

> Consoles are so ephemeral in the grand scheme of things, and lawsuits take so long, that it's not worth it. SOME consoles are sold at close to margins or even a loss at launch, making up for it later. Other companies like Nintendo have gone many generations selling at a profit at launch. So should Nintendo not be allowed to make the same revenue cut that other console makers get?

That's not really what I'm talking about. Nintendo doesn't have a "Nintendo OS" it updates for 40 years. It effectively makes a new OS each time. Any restrictions added to the Switch OS can be worked around with the Switch 2 OS.

The longest lasting console would in fact be the switch with 8 years behind it. And given how Sony is already making plans for the PS6, I don't think that will change soon. the epic/apple lawsuits took over 4 years, so any resolution would come mid-way into the lifetime of a console. Is 4 years of burning a bridge worth potentially 4 relevant years of having an epic store on the Switch? Probably not.

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

#787

Post by [deleted] »

hwillis wrote: post #751
lamontcg wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's just the opposite kind of naive. Companies are still for the most part run by CEOs, and many of those CEOs have tremendous egos and most of them have a tremendous ability to direct the actions of those companies. Look at Tesla and Twitter lawsuits- they're clearly in Musks's interests. Companies aren't minds of their own directing their own actions. Tim cook or some other high level executive is deciding these…

[deleted]

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

#788

Post by overstay8930 »

hwillis wrote: post #751
lamontcg wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's just the opposite kind of naive. Companies are still for the most part run by CEOs, and many of those CEOs have tremendous egos and most of them have a tremendous ability to direct the actions of those companies. Look at Tesla and Twitter lawsuits- they're clearly in Musks's interests. Companies aren't minds of their own directing their own actions. Tim cook or some other high level executive is deciding these…

Twitter is a private company and Apple has a board of directors very interested in not rocking the boat

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

#789

Post by blashyrk »

samatman wrote: post #371
andersa wrote: post #40

The fines Apple is going to collect for intentionally failing to comply with the DMA are going to be of Epic proportions, exceeding any profit they could have gotten by continuing to steal 30% from society. Ready your popcorn buckets for the next few months/years. They will likely be making an example out of Apple - after all Apple and Google are the reason for this legislation to exist in the first place. > In the n…

Sounds like Apple should exit the European market then. No one is forcing them to do business there, and it only accounts for 10% of their revenue.

Maybe they should. Because that's exactly the kind of attitude that they're enforcing upon their developers.

Instead, they want to have it both ways, "my way or the highway" when it comes to the App Store rules and monetization cut, but on the other hand minimal, extremely cynical "compliance" towards the rules EU has laid out for them.

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

#790

Post by Zambyte »

tracerbulletx wrote: post #726
Zambyte wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why I called them "general purpose computers that are marketed as special purpose computers".

Oh, my bad.

No worries, I feel like the way I worded it was weird :D
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