Apple to kill Epic’s accounts on Friday the 28th • Hacker News Board

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

#811

Post by sl1ck731 » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 6:03 AM UTC

sciurus wrote: post #647

VectorLock wrote: post #544

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His public image has been degraded from toe-jam eating and supposedly outrageous riders for speaking engagements (which I think everything in was pretty level headed but some people think it was 'nuts')

For anyone who hasn't read the rider: https://github.com/ddol/rre-rms/blob/master/rider.txt

He seems really insistent on not being ID'd for buses or trains, but its a requirement for flying which has a whole section. Is there something going on with buses and trains that are under more scrutiny? Also, if he can get around the ID with fake names via buses and trains why would he even accept flying?

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

#812

Post by LdSGSgvupDV » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 6:14 AM UTC

dreamcompiler wrote: post #506

grishka wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> On a device I own... And that's the issue. The overwhelming body of evidence in recent years suggests Apple does not consider the devices they make to be "yours." Rather, their attitude seems to be that those devices forever belong to Apple, and Apple simply allows you to pay for the privilege of using them.

Also, this is true for windows OS. Once you installed it, the computer would not belong to you. They would force updating, updating, and updating. Even if you were in meeting, that speaker stopped the talk and went back to find another computer.

It is ridiculous. Nowadays, physician could do a surgery in remote. How about during operation there is an update.

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

#813

Post by FrozenSynapse » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 6:26 AM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #768

zamalek wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Apple should start allowing side app stores. I hope this is what comes out of this battle

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

#814

Post by sirn » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 6:28 AM UTC

rsanek wrote: post #657

darkwizard42 wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What if the permission enablement was made more difficult? Perhaps like how you get to access Android developer tools only after tapping the build number a bunch of times. Or even, making it something you have to run from a CLI while connected to a computer. My point is, there are many options that preserve safety for the vast majority of users without making it a total non-starter to use alternative app stores.

Few years ago before Apple implemeted Night Shift, F.lux used to use an ability for non-paid developer accounts to compile and run an app on their phone to distribute. They provided a source code for a small program that serve as a shim to F.lux. User need to compile this code with Xcode and put it on their phone.

People followed tutorial videos downloading Xcode, making a developer account, figure out how to get signing profile works, etc. just to get F.lux installed on their phone. Searching for "Flux iOS 9" on YouTube yields some video with over 100k views. In some community there are people who are willing to do it for you (by VNC into user's machine) at $10 per installation.

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

#815

Post by google234123 » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 6:28 AM UTC

cma wrote: post #790

drawkbox wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Apple waived the 30% take if you used GameCenter or their game kits you think that would be seen as anti-competitive? Yes. What you have described is Epic engaging in anti-competitive behavior that isn't yet because they are the smaller of the store players. I think people are short-sighted in what Apple did for gaming. Just go back to 2007. Before Apple the only way to make a game was flash/PC with no markets oth…

> Apple opened up game development No, Apple II already had game devs selling stuff by mail without paying Apple 30%, in a much more open way.

Who cares about that? Steve Wozniak also gave away the design for free at first, does that mean that apple has no copyright protection on their computers?

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

#816

Post by mcintyre1994 » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 6:31 AM UTC

mrgordon wrote: post #44

elicash wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally thought they were already in abuse of market power. But on this latest development, I want to hear Apple's argument first. That said, I didn't find their argument on the first action compelling so not optimistic. But maybe they discovered some abuse, for one random, made-up example -- my point isn't to trust Apple but just to see what the reasoning is first. This tweet doesn't say if they were given any…

Yeah to be honest while I think Apple clearly has monopoly power here that should be reined in, I also get the feeling that Epic will have a pretty weak argument for why they purposely violated the Terms of Service and then expect to continue using the SDK tools.

I’m unconvinced that there should be repercussions beyond the App Store tbh. While Apple get to set the App Store rules fine you get taken off there, but then what’s the actual criteria for this all out permanent ban? Just not reinstating your app in a compliant form? What if you decide the deal sucks and don’t want to go back on their store? Then you just get permanently banned forever? Presumably it doesn’t work like this if you try to upload an app that breaks the rules and they catch it at app review - sorry, you broke rule xyz and if you don’t have a compliant app up within 30 days we’re permanently banning you from developing for any of our platforms. I don’t get why breaking App Store rules matters beyond the App Store at all.

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

#817

Post by fxtentacle » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 6:33 AM UTC

This is a wake-up punch to the face for every indie game studio considering iOS.

I mean if Apple kicks out Fortnite and rejects access to the Fortnite team, that seems like a reasonable retaliation for Epic breaking their rules.

But no, Apple is happily throwing hundreds of thousands of unrelated indie developers under the bus, who started building their next game with the (previously praised by Apple) iOS Unreal Engine and are now unable to release updates and security fixes because Apple is actively preventing Epic from building such fixes for the Unreal Engine.

Roughly 10 years ago, I used to be a happy Apple user and developer.

Clearly, the current Apple leadership considers iOS developers to be nothing more than expendable minions.

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

#818

Post by FriendlyNormie » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 6:37 AM UTC

fxtentacle wrote: post #817

This is a wake-up punch to the face for every indie game studio considering iOS. I mean if Apple kicks out Fortnite and rejects access to the Fortnite team, that seems like a reasonable retaliation for Epic breaking their rules. But no, Apple is happily throwing hundreds of thousands of unrelated indie developers under the bus, who started building their next game with the (previously praised by Apple) iOS Unreal Eng…

No post body was provided.

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

#819

Post by hrktb » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 6:45 AM UTC

mrgordon wrote: post #598

hrktb wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you argue a company doesn’t allow behavior X, doing it and getting punished is the best course of action to prove the point. To your point, they have a whole lawsuit filling explaining why they think X should be allowed.

According to the law, the best course of action is not to break the law to prove you don't like the law. While the Terms of Service are not the law, you agree to follow them when signing up and the terms didn't change after Epic signed up. Practically, you may be correct that this is the most expedient way to try to fix the problem but you can get burned as Epic has in the short term with a sharp drop in revenue as A…

I'd draw a parralel with civil desobediance.

I'm aware this case is between two behemoth, the point to them is not civil rights but future revenue and there's a lot to say about each side's behavior, but on the principle it's the same I think.

The important point here I think is they are bearing the consequences of their act (not that they have a choice either), so it's not like it's unfair to Apple or Google. On a scale of "breaking the rules", it's closer to sitting on a forbidden bus bench than looting stores.

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

#820

Post by totetsu » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 6:46 AM UTC

userbinator wrote: post #651

skissane wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A much more recent quote from his website[0]: 14 September 2019 (Sex between an adult and a child is wrong) Many years ago I posted that I could not see anything wrong about sex between an adult and a child, if the child accepted it. Through personal conversations in recent years, I've learned to understand how sex with a child can harm per psychologically. This changed my mind about the matter: I think adults should…

I've always thought of Stallman as the canary --- the extremist at the edge. I don't agree with a lot of things about him, but I think it's important that such people exist in order to "delineate the boundaries". Him changing his views towards "acceptability" should be taken as a bad sign, regardless of what those views are.

fwiw I don't think framing everything in as a sign in the sad story of a society on the way to 'X', is a particularly productive way to think about this kind of story. I could be that this is just a personal story of an individual who is internally consistent, and changed a view based on discussion and new information.