Who is really paying for Epic’s legal costs? It sure as hell isn’t Epic… 👀
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Apple and Epic Games Return to Court to Fight Over App Store Rules
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Like I have said a hundred times, Apple should offer two methods of hosting & payment on the App Store.
1. Current, Apple charges 15-30% of the sale or subscriptions.
2. Alternative, Apple charges a hosting fee, depending on the popularity of the app, and the developer is able to use whatever payment processor they like, whether in-app or outside.
1. Current, Apple charges 15-30% of the sale or subscriptions.
2. Alternative, Apple charges a hosting fee, depending on the popularity of the app, and the developer is able to use whatever payment processor they like, whether in-app or outside.
Maybe it got booted off the AppStore and THAT’S what Epic is really angry about.
Indeed. Epic should really open up their platform to 3rd party goat skinners. We all know Apple would be able to create a superior goat, and Epic is just scared they will lose business.
Keep waiting. Apple will allow sideloading when MS, SONY, and Nintendo allow the same.
Never ending. Epic is not right in this case.
Broke their contract. Published a video after they breached their contract showing bad faith. Have a closed platform themselves. Want to charge the same fees on their own store. Screwed their fortnite customers on apple platforms, (which wouldn't have happened if they weren't a freemium subscription model and customers could actually buy their software). If Epic itself didn't have insane market power themselves, and a complete lack of normal governance, they wouldn't have fooled around like this.
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Apple is basically a software distributor that is protecting the features of their own products. For a software distributor that amount is low. I think it is absurd that regulators force interoperability with iPhones in so much as any TV or fridge or printer manufacturer or any other iot device allow interoperability with fortnite.
I honestly don't get all of the Apple worship going on here right now. Like it or not but Epic opened pandoras box on this one and there is no going back at this point. They are the reason governments all over the world (including the US government) are looking into anti competitive practices going on in the mobile industry. At this point even if Epic looses the lawsuit they still win.
Epic is right though. The problem with closed app stores in a duopoly industry is that the players have too much power over other businesses. For example, if Apple decided to ban Uber then Uber would go out of business. Sure they can publish their app on the Google Play store but if I have an iPhone then I just can't use Uber anymore. This goes the same for Google. You see, having another platform is NOT competition in that your possible clients will only have one store from which to buy. If your app isn't on their one store then publishing it on another platform will not reach them. That means even if you have an idea for an app that is better than the competition Apple or Google still get to decide if to crush your idea. The world will be better off without that.
Epic is right though. The problem with closed app stores in a duopoly industry is that the players have too much power over other businesses. For example, if Apple decided to ban Uber then Uber would go out of business. Sure they can publish their app on the Google Play store but if I have an iPhone then I just can't use Uber anymore. This goes the same for Google. You see, having another platform is NOT competition in that your possible clients will only have one store from which to buy. If your app isn't on their one store then publishing it on another platform will not reach them. That means even if you have an idea for an app that is better than the competition Apple or Google still get to decide if to crush your idea. The world will be better off without that.
If Apple kicked off Uber it would be anti-competitive. But they haven't done that. Epic kicked itself off by breaching the terms of the store and mocked Apple while doing it. It's not Apple worship - its that many customers like myself think sideloading is the pandora's box that should stay closed, especially as that's one of the reasons I choose Apple over other platforms. And to handcuff and corrupt a product I value for Epic, Tencent or the EU USB dictators, that's just gross.
Now, Epic, or Uber, can use safari. While technically not sideloading, it's more or less the same thing at a different layer. Anyway, that's how I see it.
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I disagree. If Apps get the freedom to choose which ever payment they want, we will loose in-app purchases and then we don’t have a single point of contact for all our purchases and subscriptions.
Also it is not very secure to give your credit card details to every single website.
This is also the problem on Mac as some developers have removed in-app purchases, so you have to go to the iPad version and manage your subscription from there. Unless you want to give your credit card details to their website which is not secure.
Actually that's the point, they can't just sell the apps on their own website and then put them on iOS. That's what a third party app store would do.
I would have zero issue with "you can't put your app store's app in the Apple App Store." AFAIK even Google doesn't allow apps which are specifically meant to be app stores to be on Android. If you want F-droid, you have to go get it separately. And that's fine.
The other factor to remember is for whatever reason the Reality Distortion Field is alive and well. Even in the midst of all of this, Google recently decided to start playing shenanigans with their in-app purchase system. IIRC, they basically want to do the same as Apple does.
The mobile app market, along with many tech markets today, is an oligopoly. It's technically not a monopoly, because it's not just one company that has control. But when you have a small number of very large companies that all work together, whether deliberately or not, you end up with more or less the same effect as a monopoly.
ISPs are a good example. You have two ISPs in town. One is very expensive and has data cops. Another is cheap and doesn't have data caps. But the board of directors/management/CEO/owner/whatever of the cheaper ISP sees what the expensive ISP is doing and thinks "hmmm... we're the only two players in town, we know how difficult it is to setup a new ISP... we could keep treating our customers well, but what if we don't have to because they have only two options in the first place!" So the cheap ISP raises their prices to be just a smidge lower than the other ISP and enforces data caps that are just a smidge above the first ISP's. Is this good in the end? Of course not. The second ISP just realized it could make more money by copying the first ISP and cornering the market.
That's more or less what's happening in the app store space.
Feel how you will about Epic vs Apple, but Epic has a right to bring this to court again. I'll be watching with interest, but there is more than Apple and the App Store at stake here - just remember that.
Why would it be anticompetitive if they kicked Uber off but not if they kick Epic off?
Apple has unilateral control of the App Store's rules. Wait until the Apple Car becomes a thing, and see how friendly they remain to rideshare/delivery apps on the App Store. They could simply do the same thing they're doing to Epic - Uber must pay Apple 30% of all transactions. If Uber said "no way, that's not sustainable for us" and did what Epic did, would you be supporting Apple in kicking Uber off? Also, don't forget the side advantages - Apple could do an "exclusive deal" with say Lyft, where Lyft doesn't have to pay that 30% because reasons. Or they could just unilaterally tell Uber "no, we have an exclusive deal now with Lyft, no other rideshare apps allowed anymore, too bad". Hey, it's Apple's playground, right? Apple can do what it wants, right? Sound fair to you?
There's also a conflict of interest to consider. Apple is in many of the markets that the apps on the App Store are in that they have control of. It's gotta be a pretty sweet deal to be able to charge your direct competitors 30% of their entire revenue stream just to be able to co-exist with you. If anything, this is the argument I see for anticompetitive behavior - it means that it's impossible for anyone else to match your prices, because they have to pay you the 30% tax that you don't have to pay yourself.
(Apple has used the mall example before, but even that example falls on its face. No physical mall's management has a standard practice of charging its tenants a percentage of their sales, while simultaneously selling similar goods in a store in the same mall. The mall example actually would be a perfect compromise - you pay some fee to be on the app store, and that's it. You pay more for special advertising. You pay more if you do more sales, analogous to a larger storefront, but not a percentage, just a larger tier. If Apple just charged "rent" on the App Store and didn't screw around with some of their more restrictive policies it would be fine. But Apple charges a percentage, AND they sell services in the same domains as those they're charging.)
As for Safari, you're still locked into Safari's capabilities, and certain functions still require approval from Apple to use. And Web-based technology still can't do everything native apps can do - if it could, why aren't all apps just Web apps now anyway? Not to mention the UI is often subpar for pure Web-based apps compared to normal iOS or even Android apps.
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No sideloading is one of the major reasons why iOS is significantly more profitable for app developers than Android (along with more affluent customers). Do a search for cracked android apps and you'll see that sideloading doesn't lead to decreased fees but zero profits for non-freemium models. It's interesting how some legislators think this would be doing developers a favor.
Very true. Let me find another way to sell my iOS app… Oh that’s right, there aren’t any!
said by someone who clearly is ignorant of the fact that percentage makes up loads of things including handling taxes, hosting, bandwidth, advertising, payment fees, support costs, development tools
Physical goods/services are not liable to pay the 30%, the rules apply to all vendors, if that was not the case in the future then there would certainly be grounds to sue.
You do realize that the reason Epic is out is simply because they knowingly broke the contract and basically malware'd their own app in order to do it. Not because someone else was getting a better side deal (which is what Epic wanted for themselves).
Expand on "many" apps, I can only think of three.
- Some malls do charge a percentage of profit.
- Some malls do have their own dept stores who sell the same items as competing stores in the same mall.
Many apps (online stores, news sites etc..) do NOT offer any USER benefit over a web-app based option, in some cases (Facebook for example) a worse experience. But they can bombard you with more "exclusive" in-app crap and one touch IAP's.
Epic Failure to convince. They have missed out on a boatload of money to make just barely more for their mouth breathers on Wall Street
But as an end user, I want your app to come from the app store. If I was to see a "go to this link to get an app" I would just close the page.