It seems we are in agreemnet here. If you have an app on the APP Store or use Apple's tools, Apple can charge for that.
My point was from what I recall Cydia was having to charge 30% to stay viable; and part of why they could was they offered options you could not get on Apple. I suspect small 3rd party stores will find it hard to remain viable in teh face of competition form Apple and EPIC.
And yet, Cydia with its tiny niche user base has remained viable for over 15 years. That’s pretty remarkable when you consider the uphill battle against not just Apple’s ecosystem, but also the lack of mainstream visibility and need to jailbreak the device and it possibly breaking in new iOS updates.
The lesson isn’t that third-party stores can’t survive it’s that they can, even in a tightly controlled environment, when there’s real demand for features or apps Apple doesn’t allow.
But I fully agree if you’re using Apple’s App Store, Xcode, or other first-party services, then Apple can and should charge as long as the pricing is non-discriminatory and tied to actual usage irrespective of the app is free or not, sells physical or digital goods etc etc
My point was id EPIC's app is on the Apple App Store Apple has a right to charge for that, thye should not be expected to host for free and app that is using their services and charging users ouside of Apple.
EPIC takes a cut for UE even if you are not on their store, whether it is for game development or other uses. Perhaps Apple needs to change it's developer fee structure to be more like EPIC's.
How is using Apple's software, whether developer tools of iOS on a an iPhone, different from using EPIC's UE? In both cases you are relying on tools that are owned and developed by a company. You may own the iPhone just as you do the game, but in either case the developer is relying on software developed by others to make a product.
That would be a fair analogy if Apple’s fees were limited to actual tools or services you opt into using but that’s exactly the problem: they’re not.
If I use Unreal Engine, Epic charges me only if I use their engine, and only after I cross a revenue threshold. That’s an optional service: I can switch to Unity, Godot, or roll my own engine and Epic is no longer involved. Their cut is tied to real usage. No one pays Epic just for existing on Windows or PlayStation.
But with Apple, the Core Technology Fee (CTF) applies even if I:
- Build my app using Unity or a completely different toolchain
- Distribute it outside the App Store via a third-party store
- Handle all payments and hosting independently
In that case, Apple isn’t doing anything for me, yet still wants a €0.50-per-install fee after 1 million installs. That’s not a developer fee it’s a platform tax. A fee on success, even when Apple provides no service.
And to your point about Apple “hosting for free” they wouldn’t be. If an app is hosted on Epic’s store and not on the App Store, then Apple isn’t hosting anything. They’re just the OS vendor. That’s like Microsoft charging Epic for hosting Fortnite on Windows even when it’s downloaded from Epic’s own launch
The core difference is this:
- Epic’s engine is a modular service. Use it, pay for it. Don’t, and you’re free.
- Epic store takes a fee if it’s sold on it, but not in app purchases using your own solutions.
- Apple’s platform is a walled garden, where Apple charges you whether you use their services or not.
That’s not competition, that’s tollbooth economics.
And again, this isn’t just theoretical. Stores like AltStore and Cydia have operated with zero Apple involvement. Developers paid them directly not Apple and Apple provided no hosting, payments, or app review.
The only thing Apple “provided” was the OS, which developers already targeted with their own tools.
I agree EPIC can do it for as long as Sweeny wants to. A smart developer could build up a following and then leave EPIC for self hosting once they get near the million dollar mark, using Sweeny as a platform to gain notice until they are big enough to go it alone. That would be karma for Sweeny.
Exactlythat’s the beauty of optional platforms. Developers can multihome or migrate at their own pace. Apple, however, erects barriers at every turn: separate toolchains and APIs for each store, mandatory parallel development, intimidating install warnings, and that ever-present Core Technology Fee.
No wonder most studios picked Steam over the Mac App Store. They want portability and choice, not vendor lock-in. The DMA is precisely about dismantling those anti competitive walls and restoring a truly contestable, user-driven ecosystem.
Sure, just make it possible to select the level of access to data on my phone so if I install such an app I can completely block it from accessing anything on my iPhone and not calling home to send data or serve ads.
Apple already has the technical capability to sandbox apps, limit network access, and prevent invasive data flows, yet they only expose that control selectively. Tools like Little Snitch or the multitude of Cydia tweaks that did the same thing prove that deeper privacy controls are feasible, Apple simply chooses not to offer them in the native OS.
Giving users true control over what apps can access (including blocking tracking, ads, and telemetry) would effectively enforce the spirit of “Do Not Track” not as a wish, but as an enforceable system feature.
