Apple Approves Epic Games Store for iPhone and iPad in EU

[thefourthpope]

I like this combination.

Let other people have choice. I would not download anything from the new store particularly because I don’t do anything Fortnite or Fortnite-adjacent. But I’ve done jail breaking in the past and can easily imagine something that would tempt me out of the App Store.

I assume parental controls would still apply, and I’d still be involved in approving anything my kids want to download. It’s been a great opportunity to talk about privacy etc.

(Wasn’t willing to scroll through on my phone to find and properly quote @PeterKeller and @breenmask though)

 

[Hessian]

Having choice is always the best choice.

Yeah. I should be able to sell candy cane pickaxes on their platform for free.

Give us choice!

 

[Hessian]

ughhh CHOICES! i fk'n hate when I have choices!! THANKS A LOT EUROPE!!!!!
GIVE APPLE BACK IT'S MONOPOLY

MALWARE VIRUSES BLAH BLAH BLAH ********

Love when people say monopoly for a company that has a monopoly on their product. Apple doesn’t have even a majority of smartphones, let alone a monopoly.

Sony has a monopoly on the PlayStation store and Microsoft on the Xbox store. Macrumors has a monopoly on the chat forum of their website.

 

[surferfb]

I assume parental controls would still apply, and I’d still be involved in approving anything my kids want to download. It’s been a great opportunity to talk about privacy etc.

Parental controls should still work, but not everything parental-related you’re used to will. From Apple’s DMA site:

Features like restrictions on In-App Purchase in Screen Time and Family Purchase Sharing, universal purchase, as well as Ask to Buy are not supported because the App Store and its private and secure commerce system won’t be facilitating these purchases.

Also if your kid steals your debit/credit card and racks up hundreds or thousands in purchases through the Epic store, better hope Epic has a decent refund policy

Apple won’t be able to assist users with refunds, purchase history, subscription cancellations and management, violations of user data privacy, abuse, or fraud and manipulation, in addition to issues that make the user experience less intuitive. Developers, or the alternative app marketplace from which their app was installed, will be responsible for addressing such issues with customers.

 

[surferfb]

Having choice is always the best choice.

Glad you support my choice to drain your bank account without any negative consequences impacting me - could you send me a PM with your login to your bank? Thanks!

Having a choice is always the best choice!

 

[Hessian]

Agreed. How dare they require consumers to have a choice. Those rotten communists!

Choice is sending your kids to any school with a voucher. Choice is building a product and letting people decide if they like your rules.

Choice isn’t government telling a business what to do with their inventions.

 

[Hessian]

Not in my country.

Honestly, who can complain that USB-c is standard or that we and app developers have a choice? I guess the reluctance to EU enforced laws is politically driven reaction rather that a rational one.

Awesome! Competition is good for everyone.

Squatting on someone else’s property isn’t market competition. The iPhone has competition. It’s called android. Epic is leaching and consumers have no more or less choice. Epic isn’t publishing their app on both stores. That would be choice. This is money grabbing.

 

[Hessian]

"I want other people to have less choice

People or developers? Because consumers have no more or less choice at this moment.

 

[Hessian]

People acting like they need to use this or are being forced to. If you don't like the big bad Epic and want Apple to hold your hand and keep you safe then you can stay in your little safe bubble and listen to what Tim tells you.

I think this is cool. Shame I'm not in the EU Hopefully Apple is forced by other countries to do this.

Are we forced to use the Epic store to install Epic games? Or will I have a “choice” to install via Apple’s store?

Why can’t I open my skins store in a Fortnite? We want “choice” right?

 

[Hessian]

lol what is this childish nonsense? It’s not the 90s anymore where people stigmatise video games. Literally movie stars and football players who make 10s of millions of dollars per year and live considerably more comfortable lives than you play video games such as Fortnite. Get on with the times.

Yeah. Really cool “influencers” from YouTube play games all day. And they are living way better lives than us bro. 😎

Never mind mental health is on the decline and obesity is on the rise. Nothing to see here. 😂

 

[Atomicow]

Apple charges 30% for popular apps and their developers.

Read the comment that I quoted again.

 

[macfacts]

....

Why can’t I open my skins store in a Fortnite? We want “choice” right?

I believe it is apple stopping you from doing that.

 

[Atomicow]

Say what you will about Epic and Tim Sweeney but he went to war with Apple and won. Most developers don't even dare speak ill of Apple even if they think they're getting the short end of the deal. Not Epic. They took this thing all the way and now even the United States is considering taking an anti trust stance on Apple. Governments decide who can operate within their boarders. If Apple doesn't want to follow the rules they get their income cut off.

Uh, no. Epic and Tim Sweeney lost big time.

They intentionally broke Apples developer agreement and were banned by Apple.
They sued Apple and then lost that court case. As a result of that court case they a legally barred from making Apple developer accounts in the US, which means they will never be able to release any of their apps in the US.
They spent millions of dollars in legal fees, and have lost millions of dollars in sales.
And now all they have is the chance to sell their game on an alt store in the EU only, which will net them far less than if they had just stuck with Apples original terms.

It’s almost comical how badly Tim Sweeney has fumbled this whole thing.

 

[jakey rolling]

Squatting on someone else’s property isn’t market competition. The iPhone has competition. It’s called android. Epic is leaching and consumers have no more or less choice. Epic isn’t publishing their app on both stores. That would be choice. This is money grabbing.

Last I saw, iPhones were the property of their purchasers, not Apple. You can **** right off with the idea that Apple owns me as their customer.

 

[steve123]

Epic Games is 40% owned by Tencent. Is there some sort of national security threat? Could the Chinese government compel Tencent to download malware onto their users phones?

 

[Piggie]

What I find rather hilarious about all of this is how apparent it is that a certain percentage of people hate change, and yet, once changes are in place, then people would not want to go back to before the change.

You can take probably hundreds of changes to iPhones over the years since it's launch that people were opposed to, and mocked other brands from creating, wanting their iPhones to not take on these things.
And here we are many many years later with very different iPhones full of hundreds of changes over the years, and these people are happy and yet again don't want to see changes.

Perhaps as an experiment Apple should get rid of all these things, and revert back to a very old iPhone model, at a time with these type of people were saying it's perfect, and just give them that again and see how they like them

Humans are a funny Great Ape of a certain degree of intelligence, and many are so set in their ways..
To some change is uncomfortable, and happiness can be found in things they know remaining the same.

Give it another 10 years, and a whole new generation of iPhone users, and tell them, they can only use Apple's own store, and they would probably hold up their hands in horror about being so locked down and restricted.

It's funny to see this happen over the years when changes occur, and then become accepted

 

[AppliedMicro]

I’m really not sure what you mean here. Do you literally mean the 'model of security' which is basically 'apps need to be secure' (motherhood statement which means nothing) or do you mean the apps will continue to be secure in the same way they are now, moderated by Apple.

User apps are sandboxed and are required to be digitally signed/notarised.
Apple can revoke that certificate after the fact.

That’s the security model, on an operating system level.
And there's no new "backdoor" in that.

And on the level of individual apps, Apple still reserves the right to review them before distribution to consumers. Though there has been - and continues to exist the "back door" just as before: Apps can be installed and that have not been reviewed by Apple. Though Apple's superficial review process isn't providing true technical security anyway (as sandboxing would, if working 100% correctly).

My bottom line is this - from which this discussion originated in this thread - is this: The DMA wasn't intended or designed as a cunning ploy to enable chat control or other surveillance through the back door. It doesn't really provide any new way of enabling government-level actors, it doesn't make sense. Quite the contrary, if anything, it enables end users access to applications that are not subject to EU government regulation.

That does not negate the fact that there have been and still are repeated attempts at EU level to mandate government access to communication and enable surveillance. But the DMA isn't some sort of "trojan horse" to enable that.

These changes also compromise Apple’s ability to detect, prevent, and take action against malicious apps on iOS and to support users impacted by issues with apps downloaded outside of the App Store.

That is b*llsh*t justification for their monopoly (on app distribution to consumers on iOS)

Support users impacted by issued with apps? They don't even provide support for third-party apps downloaded from their own App Store, beyond telling you to uninstall and, possibly, a refund.

And compromising Apple's ability to detect and prevent against malicious? They compromised that right back in 2011, when they allowed apps to be installed and used without requiring review by Apple. Cause they were willing to make accommodations for business use of iOS devices.

 

[AppliedMicro]

What’s new is the lack of an approval process. See epic.

Nonsense. It was approved after initial rejections.
They first rejected and later approved the store in their approval process.

Corporate enterprise certifications are not the same as sideloading, unapproved app stores etc.

A certificate is not an installation. Certificates are a requirement for installing apps.
The same that enables third-party apps downloaded from web sites to be installed and run.

From a technical perspective, the security model remains unchanged (and that's what's relevant with regards to allegations of the DMA being a "backdoor" for government surveillance. Government actors the size of the EU have access to certificates anyway, and they can legislate their way to access as well).

 

[AndiG]

What I find rather hilarious about all of this is how apparent it is that a certain percentage of people hate change, and yet, once changes are in place, then people would not want to go back to before the change.

You can take probably hundreds of changes to iPhones over the years since it's launch that people were opposed to, and mocked other brands from creating, wanting their iPhones to not take on these things.
And here we are many many years later with very different iPhones full of hundreds of changes over the years, and these people are happy and yet again don't want to see changes.

Perhaps as an experiment Apple should get rid of all these things, and revert back to a very old iPhone model, at a time with these type of people were saying it's perfect, and just give them that again and see how they like them

Humans are a funny Great Ape of a certain degree of intelligence, and many are so set in their ways..
To some change is uncomfortable, and happiness can be found in things they know remaining the same.

Give it another 10 years, and a whole new generation of iPhone users, and tell them, they can only use Apple's own store, and they would probably hold up their hands in horror about being so locked down and restricted.

It's funny to see this happen over the years when changes occur, and then become accepted

You remember the widgets battle? It took Apple 10 years but now we have em. widgets! Widgets! WIDGETS!!!

Millions of comments could be found in MR history why widgets are useless, evil and total crap.

😂😂😂 So funny

 

[AppliedMicro]

Love when people say monopoly for a company that has a monopoly on their product. Apple doesn’t have even a majority of smartphones, let alone a monopoly.

Third-party apps and services - such as Fortnite and Spotify - are not Apple's (own) product.
And Apple had the monopoly for distribution of such products to iOS users.

The iPhone has competition. It’s called android

You are missing the point of the DMA.

The DMA isn't about more competition in smartphones or computers as hardware devices.
And only somewhat but not really about operating systems for such devices either, let alone the competition between those operating systems.

Acknowledging that the end user base - and access to that end user base - is divided between one or to (OS) platforms, it's about business users' ability to sell and market to those consumers, prohibiting anticompetitive behaviour from those platform operators/developers.

 

[Pezimak]

Ouch!

Someone get Tim Cook some aloe, that burn must be fierce!

Reminds me of Greg Joswiak's interview on the USB-C law. He disparaged it and finally said, "obviously, we'll have to comply."

I cannot wait to see Apples idea of easy to replace batteries by the end users. Bet they'll double iPhone price if then though along with everyone else, it massively inflate battery prices, or both. One thing Apple does not want you doing is servicing your device, they want that device in their store where they control the market and pricing and profits. They want the monopoly on it. Hence the right to repair battle with Apple.

 

[steve09090]

User apps are sandboxed and are required to be digitally signed/notarised.
Apple can revoke that certificate after the fact.

That’s the security model, on an operating system level.
And there's no new "backdoor" in that.

And on the level of individual apps, Apple still reserves the right to review them before distribution to consumers. Though there has been - and continues to exist the "back door" just as before: Apps can be installed and that have not been reviewed by Apple. Though Apple's superficial review process isn't providing true technical security anyway (as sandboxing would, if working 100% correctly).

My bottom line is this - from which this discussion originated in this thread - is this: The DMA wasn't intended or designed as a cunning ploy to enable chat control or other surveillance through the back door. It doesn't really provide any new way of enabling government-level actors, it doesn't make sense. Quite the contrary, if anything, it enables end users access to applications that are not subject to EU government regulation.

That does not negate the fact that there have been and still are repeated attempts at EU level to mandate government access to communication and enable surveillance. But the DMA isn't some sort of "trojan horse" to enable that.

I don’t agree with your subjective point of view and think it’s not balanced. Thus I am taking what you say with a grain of salt. I simply don’t trust a view that is so parochial.

I assume most of what you have said is not based on the quotes you have used because it makes no sense, as I didn’t talk about many of the things you have mentioned. We often see people saying things that are off topic or misquote others. I have never once mentioned this being a back door to anything. Or ways for government led bad-actors. So you can count me out of that discussion.

Clearly, and I have said this before. The DMA is there to enable EU companies to make money within the EU. It has nothing to do with surveillance or anything nefarious. It certainly has nothing to do with helping consumers either. Maybe consider that instead of attacking what I have said. I have only questioned the way, and the steps it took to get to that point. And we know exactly how corruption has leaked into the EU Commission. We've addressed that and the Criminal Courts can take it from there.

That is b*llsh*t justification for their monopoly (on app distribution to consumers on iOS)

Support users impacted by issued with apps? They don't even provide support for third-party apps downloaded from their own App Store, beyond telling you to uninstall and, possibly, a refund.

And compromising Apple's ability to detect and prevent against malicious? They compromised that right back in 2011, when they allowed apps to be installed and used without requiring review by Apple. Cause they were willing to make accommodations for business use of iOS devices.

You know more about this than Apple? I think thats ridiculous.

 

[steve09090]

Third-party apps and services - such as Fortnite and Spotify - are not Apple's (own) product.
And Apple had the monopoly for distribution of such products to iOS users.

Nobody said they are. I go to a store, be it Apple, Amazon or the local 7-11 and those stores often do not sell just their own products. Have you ever heard of distribution? Nobody has claimed Apple own Fortnite and it to even suggest they did is disingenuous and somewhat creating a distorted version of what they said.

 

[steve09090]

You remember the widgets battle? It took Apple 10 years but now we have em. widgets! Widgets! WIDGETS!!!

Millions of comments could be found in MR history why widgets are useless, evil and total crap.

😂😂😂 So funny

I think Apple didn’t want them because they had used them for decades (or so) with Mac. And it was terrible (imo). But they certainly have their place on a mobile device. Android is a great test device for Apple because they make all the mistakes en masse. Apple's greatest invention is letting others stuff up first. In this thread the EU are trying to be first to the party.

 

[Manzanito]

Are they really arguing about the shape of a friggin’ button now?