Not only special APIs but devs kept out of store from using special machine level code that can be much faster than some of Apple’s APIs.
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Apple Offered Special App Store API Access to Hulu and Other Developers
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Think what you might about Apple's app-store policies, but Apple is not a monopoly. Cable companies are far closer to being a monopoly than Apple. TicketMaster is a nearly textbook example of a monopoly, and a consumer-harming one at that... yet the government has ignored them for decades.
Suing Apple for wasting developers' time (and money) with nebulous or false statements and underhanded secret deals might be viable, but attacking them for generally exercising control of their own app store is bull****.
Suing Apple for wasting developers' time (and money) with nebulous or false statements and underhanded secret deals might be viable, but attacking them for generally exercising control of their own app store is bull****.
Which can break on a moment's notice because they're not supposed to be public. So that complaint is dumb. A better complaint would be how developers are blocked from accessing the I/O port and from accessing telephony functions.
And what is indefensible here? Do you give access to all your apis to all your partners/developers?
Agreed. No one else had the wherewithal to file a case.
No one took the expression to the extreme. That is a direct quote.
Disagree. I think a lot more people now see what is really going on.
Tim Cook must be fuming this case is revealing so many Apple secrets and confidential info.
As someone who sells to Walmart, that demand is not as common as you think. Walmart isn't going to tell us how we do business with Target or Amazon, and we do our best to hide our pricing so they can't pull crap like this. Sure there are fights over discounts/promos/etc. and they'll get all up in arms when they see CVS has a BOGO deal one week or something, but ultimately Walmart doesn't get to set our prices unless it's on Walmart's shelf. Costs of doing business vary depending on which retailer we sell to, and our pricing has to reflect those differences. At most, they ask to shave a couple pennies off of our MSRP.
Target tried to get us to stop selling to Amazon a decade back, threatening not to buy anything we also sold to Amazon; we all but laughed in their faces. Big Box retailers don't have that kind of power anymore.
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My goodness- some people just never learn. People get all upset because some developers have access to whitelisted APIs that others don’t have. Yes, Apple says they treat all developers the same. YET!!!! Apple is notorious for developing products for years and years. Apple has a history of restricting features for both their software and hardware. It’s the massive pink elephant in the room and always has been and always will be. Just relax and breath.
And why do they restrict stuff? To hopefully get it right before it hits the masses who will foam at the mouth looking and tweeting and FBing all the problems.
And why do they restrict stuff? To hopefully get it right before it hits the masses who will foam at the mouth looking and tweeting and FBing all the problems.
How many YEARS does Apple need to test this particular API?
How ever long Apple feels they need to test it - wish I had a crystal ball to tell you a date.
With the recent quality standards we have all seen and the serious bugs not fixed, the answer might be 10 years?
What is really going on? Some multi-million subscriber devs can issue refunds on their own authority? Oh, the humanity!
So, basic data sharing agreement. Nothing to see here.
Today is the fourth day of the Epic Games v. Apple legal battle, and documents shared in the trial continue to give us insight into the App Store and Apple's business practices.
App Store Vice President Matt Fischer is on the stand answering questions from Apple and Epic lawyers, and one of the emails shared as evidence confirms that Apple has established special deals with major app developers like Hulu.
In 2018, a tweet from developer David Barnard commented about App Store subscriptions being automatically cancelled through the StoreKit API, questioning why there hadn't been more offers to swap billing away from the App Store.
Matt Fischer asked Cindy Lin about it, and she explained that Hulu is a developer with special access to a subscription cancel/refund API.Apple does not further detail who other developers with special access might have been in the correspondence, but these are not features that all developers have access to.
Apple has long said that the App Store provides a "level playing field" that treats all apps in the App Store the same with one set of rules for everybody and no special deals or special terms, but it's clear that some apps are indeed provided with special privileges.
Fischer was asked specifically whether Apple has given some developers special access to allow them to do things that other developers don't get to do, and Fischer said no, but he said that Apple sometimes wants to test a feature with a small group before providing it to all developers.
Prior to when Epic Games implemented its own purchase options and kicked off this entire legal battle, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney asked Apple for a special deal that would allow it to bypass the in-app purchase system, which Apple denied. Just this week Sweeney also said that he would have accepted special terms from Apple for lower App Store commission.
Article Link: Apple Offered Special App Store API Access to Hulu and Other Developers
Yes they do but it isn’t as bad as a handful of developers make it out to be. Apple will probably have to make some concessions but definitely not opening up iOS or iPadOS to 3rd party app stores.
Overall the general public has no idea what is "really going on" or even a single clue, nor do they care. Go ask people on the street and see if they've even heard of the Apple vs Epic trail or what it's about or what Phil Schiller said in 2012. Not much will change unless Apple is forced to.. and even then most people still won't care.
PS. Did you know you can quote multiple posts and respond to them all without making 6 separate posts?
Unfortunately, anticipated regulatory pressure will limit their desire to make their own changes before talking to regulators.