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Apple Retains Gibson Dunn Lawyers From Samsung Case to Combat Epic Games
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Definition of monopoly
1: exclusive ownership through legal privilege, command of supply, or concerted action
2: exclusive possession or control no country has a monopoly on morality or truth— Helen M. Lynd
3: a commodity controlled by one party had a monopoly on flint from their quarries— Barbara A. Leitch
4: one that has a monopoly The government passed laws intended to break up monopolies.
Just because a thumb is a finger doesn’t mean all fingers are thumbs. Having one of something is necessary, but it is not sufficient.
Yeah there's quite a few that do, and every one of them that has a monopoly is bang out of order.
The ad is clearly a parody of the Apple ad and is fair use.
The thing that disappoints me is that the ad lost a lot of the subtle pieces that original ad had. The Fortnite version's script I think butchers the script in a way that they could have parodied even further (the "We have created for the first time in all history a garden of pure ideology" is just screaming to be updated to "a walled garden of pure apps") instead of how they phrase it ("for years they have given us their songs, their labor, their dreams"). The tone of the two scripts is different in a way that feels like the Fortnite team didn't really understand it and could have presented it more powerfully. The ending of the two different ads speaks to a further divergence: The Apple one ends with a voice over that creates anticipation ("Apple Computer will") and the music more sullen which is juxtaposed against the Fortnite one that presents itself fait accompli with a call to action backed by music that seems to resolve itself. There is also the obvious miss that it's not 1984 any more and that allusion doesn't really work as well.
This for me goes back to how Epic have front loaded a lot of this work instead of delaying it out. Have Apple remove the app first and get a weeks worth of press. Release the ad a week later but instead of their text put some anticipation in: "On August 20th, Fortnite will fight back against the App Store monopolies so that 2020 won't be like 1984." This change also removes Apple from the ad which makes it applicable to both Apple and Google even though it's clearly a parody of their ad. Then file the suit on the nominated date and then a week later announce the coalition against the App Store. You've drummed up a few weeks worth of press, rolled pieces out progressively and made it look less like the hyper managed, hyper planned act it clearly was.
Do you have a better example? The "Get Started with Xamarin.iOS" page has a really big screenshot of the Mac App Store and Xcode on it.
I'm just asking you to back up your statement, if you're unable to do so then that's fine. You seemed to think there are lots of other choices yet the first example you provide has the first thing for you to do as get Xcode and the iOS SDK's.
I already did a Google and couldn't find anything that seemed to work without any dependency on Xcode or the iOS SDK's to build the apps. I was hoping you'd be able to enlighten me but no worries if you don't have any examples.
Finally Epic Found Its Match
They Say About Monopoly on Apple But Their Store Otherwise
Remember Rocket League Now Karma On It's way
They Say About Monopoly on Apple But Their Store Otherwise
Remember Rocket League Now Karma On It's way
You must know Epic say Apple Monopoly Everything in Appstore But Their Store Say Otherwise Buying Title For Their Monopoly Example : Rocket League ....
PhoneGap, Ionic, Multi-OS-Engine.... That took 30s to find, and I'm sure there are plenty more. Now possibly you need xcode to actually load the final step onto the Apple store, I didn't really read in that far, but I'm pretty sure if it is the case, it's because Apple has locked out anything else, not because they have magnanimously worked tirelessly to provide this amazing x-code tool that everyone actually needs. The point is, the only thing preventing people from selling apps on iPhones/iPads, is Apple's monopoly rules, not a lack of tools that no one else is capable of building. Regardless, there are a lot of people constantly coming up with clever ways to write multi-os apps so that devs can write-once to install on various platforms as seamlessly as possible. Apple doesn't make it easy for them by creating wonderful tools for them, it gets in the way, so as to protect it's monopoly market dominance.
I checked out PhoneGap, Ionic and Multi-OS Engine and all three start off with downloading Xcode and the iOS SDK. PhoneGap seems to have a PhoneGap build option that will let you run it in the cloud but I'm guessing that's still running on a Mac to build the app. Waiting for a cloud service isn't fully optimal and PhoneGap suggests that getting setup with a Mac with Xcode and the iOS SDK is the better path to take.
Apple have shipped Xcode for free for around two decades and it used to be included on the install media for Mac OS X. Many of those tools date back to the NeXT platform that Mac OS X was built from. To be honest I miss the Xcode of old for many of the features that used to exist on the Mac that have slowly fallen away. Back when Apple put a lot of effort into building bridges for their software because others didn't, back when they built their own sync connectors for devices because nobody released Mac software and back when they shipped one of the best platforms to be a Java developer on with full first party support. Apple started building their own ecosystem of computing devices that interact with each other seamlessly and have with each product release been laughed at as never going to succeed and quite often reached this point where people then start to litigate against them decrying them as a monopoly. As a minority player in a market, it is often hard to convince others to build development tools for your new platform so you create tools out of necessity rather than pure generosity for sure. Of course that changes once you gain popularity and you end up with people screaming at your for being a monopoly that locks people out even though that's how your platform has behaved for 12 years.
On that note, I agree that Apple's rules are absolutely preventing people from selling apps on iPhone and iPads, I don't think anyone could reasonably argue any differently. Apple have been reasonably consistent about it and at this stage it should be no surprise for anyone about the rules. There is definitely some capriciousness in the enforcement of the guidelines but that is orthogonal to a more fundamental question: how much control should Apple have over the platform that they have developed? Apple doesn't sell their operating system to run on generic hardware, they in fact tune it to work with their own hardware and leverage unique capabilities that it offers. They build SDK's to expose these capabilities as well as host platform specific services that provide seamless integration. There seems to be some contention that because Apple make a profit on their hardware that they shouldn't be able to make profit elsewhere which is an interesting argument to make because many companies make profit from extra value added services. There is of course the contention that Apple doesn't provide any value for their 30% and to an extent I agree that there is marginal value but the alternative is that anyone could build on top of their platform and pay only $99. The 30% revenue sharing arrangement itself is not uncommon, as pointed out elsewhere, and is something that exists in a number of other industries as well.
More fundamentally though is Apple should be able to determine it's business model for running it's business and ensure it's continued existence. If it gets to the point that nobody is willing to pull the 30% and the App Store only contains free apps then maybe at that point Apple might change. My feeling is though that there are developers who are willing to accept the 30% that Apple takes in return for the services they offer. Apple seem to have roughly 50% share of the market though they've slowly built that up compared to the massive leap that Android had when it launched and dominated the low cost phone market. Of course the challenge there for third party developers is that the iOS ecosystem is generally more profitable than the Android one which one could consider an additional value that the App Store provides.
Ultimately the way to solve that as a consumer is to buy an Android device and buy apps on that platform to show that there is money to be made. That in and of itself though shows that Apple doesn't have a monopoly because you have a choice to not exist in Apple's ecosystem as either a consumer or a developer.
You're right, Disney probably doesn't care about the App Store... but this conflict goes beyond that in that Apple has threatened to recind all access for Epic to any/all developement tools.... meaning the "UNREAL ENGINE" is at risk.... and Disney has a HUGE stake in that
No they don’t. Disney doesn’t need unreal running on iphones/ipads for its production work.
And apple didn’t actually threaten to prevent unreal from running on those devices anyway.
Who said ANYTHING about the Unreal Engine on an Ipad/Iphone or anyother mobile device. The "UNREAL ENGINE" is the backbone for every computerized attraction at Disney's Galaxy's Edge ..... and Apple threatened to revoke Epics developement TOOL licenese, And without those tools future work on the UNREAL ENGINE is at risk, and therefore Disneys ability to keep those product licenses from Epic up to date is at risk... Has NOTHING to do with mobile devices, has nothing to do with the App Store....
Apple are threatening to revoke Epic's license to use Apple's developer tools which would mean that Epic cannot develop Unreal Engine for iOS, iPadOS and MacOS. This wouldn't prevent Epic from continuing Unreal Engine development for Android devices, PC's running Windows or Linux, the Xbox, the Playstation or Switch. It is unlikely Disney leverage Mac hardware to run these attractions, I'd expect them to use Windows based PCs or perhaps even Linux.
AppCode.
AppCode: Smart Swift/Objective-C IDE for iOS & macOS Development
An intelligent IDE for iOS/macOS development focused on code quality, efficient code navigation, smart code completion, on-the-fly code analysis with quick-fixes and superior code refactorings.
I still using xcode. Xcode is the worst IDE for me , it design for non developer.
macos market is doom for gaming and merging macos arm is the worst monopoly .Macos yes leverage from this but .... How do you think the ram required? Are developer bind to normal must have 8 gb or minimal 3 gb , then it will super messy development.
So I'm not sure how to tell you but...
I think it might require Xcode.
Xcode around version 4 switched into this all in one monstrosity, before then it had a much simpler more modular design that I really liked. They went for this all in one app mode, in hindsight they were preparing for the App Store taking over and maybe using Xcode as their own experimentation on how that could work. They used to have stuff like Interface Builder as a separate application instead of bundled in.
I miss the older Xcode versions but the world moves on.
I personally wouldn't expect the RAM to change significantly. The iPad Pro already ships with 6GB of RAM for the 2020 release and the Apple Silicon DTK shipped with 16GB of RAM. I'd expect at least parity on the Mac for memory when they shift the CPU from Intel to Apple Silicon.
That said, the MacOS gaming ecosystem is already poorly supported anyway. Unifying the mobile and desktop platforms should make it easier to get games on the Mac by extension of them working on iOS already. The DTK shipped with a version of the A12Z chip from a couple of years ago and did reasonably on benchmarks and whilst it isn't top tier performance, it's enough to handle a bunch of games. I'm not sure I see MacOS as being a significant gaming market any more than it is today though, it'll take some time.
I am clearly missing something. If apple revokes whatever license you are worried about, how does that stop unreal engine from running on windows? Are you saying that if Epic can’t support the measly 7% of the desktop market owned by apple, their whole business comes crashing down?
.. I prefer to code programmatically either in Xcode or visual studio. More control.
Developers should test the minimum requirement. Yes I think it's like
Civilization IXXX for iOS - need 2 GB RAM min
Civilization IXXX for macOS arm - need 6 GB RAM min
Civilization IXXX for ipadOS - need 3 GB RAM min
For sure the developer wants to maximize the capability of the device and mostly they would compile to all in one app ( i don't do it yet).
Hi,
In these very interesting discussions, one aspect has been skipped: There is in fact one real monopoly to be concerned or worried about. This is the Fortnite Monopoly. You can "buy" Fortnite only from Epic. And in fact, you do not even have to buy the game, you get it for free. What you can buy are some fairly useless and quite "worthless" accessories that do not add anything neither to the game play nor to the game development complexity. So Epic is selling "near"-nothing at "high" price in its Fortnite Shop. Of course, the revenue of these sales needs to pay for the development of the game.
From this point of view, I can really understand why they want to be considered more like a company selling physical goods than like an App, where you really purchase "Functionality"/"Software features" over InApp-Purchases.
But if I look at it from this point of view, I do not see any reason why it should not be possible for 3rd party graphics designers or choreographs to sell skins and moves on the Fortnite store. As I said, skins and moves do not affect the complexity of the game and there certainly already is a standard exchange Format for these. Of course such skins and moves would need to pass a review process and Epic may also charge some xx% of the price of each copy sold to an end customer... From a customer perspective, Epic would need to be allowed to offer their own store but at the same time be forced to allow 3rd parties to sell on this Fortnite Store (on every Platform, not only the Apple App Store). With such a setup and assuming there are no "real" Software-Features sold, it could be argued that the App is selling stuff very similar to "physical goods".
There were some mentions of EU possibly ruling about this. I personally think that if EU is going to regulate App stores, EU will probably also regulate In-App-Purchases at the same time. And the outcome might not be, what EPIC expects. (as illustrated above).
Greetings,
Tun
In these very interesting discussions, one aspect has been skipped: There is in fact one real monopoly to be concerned or worried about. This is the Fortnite Monopoly. You can "buy" Fortnite only from Epic. And in fact, you do not even have to buy the game, you get it for free. What you can buy are some fairly useless and quite "worthless" accessories that do not add anything neither to the game play nor to the game development complexity. So Epic is selling "near"-nothing at "high" price in its Fortnite Shop. Of course, the revenue of these sales needs to pay for the development of the game.
From this point of view, I can really understand why they want to be considered more like a company selling physical goods than like an App, where you really purchase "Functionality"/"Software features" over InApp-Purchases.
But if I look at it from this point of view, I do not see any reason why it should not be possible for 3rd party graphics designers or choreographs to sell skins and moves on the Fortnite store. As I said, skins and moves do not affect the complexity of the game and there certainly already is a standard exchange Format for these. Of course such skins and moves would need to pass a review process and Epic may also charge some xx% of the price of each copy sold to an end customer... From a customer perspective, Epic would need to be allowed to offer their own store but at the same time be forced to allow 3rd parties to sell on this Fortnite Store (on every Platform, not only the Apple App Store). With such a setup and assuming there are no "real" Software-Features sold, it could be argued that the App is selling stuff very similar to "physical goods".
There were some mentions of EU possibly ruling about this. I personally think that if EU is going to regulate App stores, EU will probably also regulate In-App-Purchases at the same time. And the outcome might not be, what EPIC expects. (as illustrated above).
Greetings,
Tun
A few in the threads have pointed out Fortnite have a monopoly over the sale of skins for Fortnite and that Epic is the only company permitted to purchase said skins. I've thought it would be funny that a similar lawsuit be spun up taking much of the content of Epic's complaint against Apple and rewording it to apply to Fortnite.
One of the other suggestions I've made is that Epic itself is undertaking anticompetitive behaviour trying to leverage its market dominance in the battle royale market with Fortnite and it's dominance in the game engine machine via Unreal Engine as threats to force a player in another market, the app store, to give them a position in that marketplace that they haven't themselves earned. Microsoft's letter of support of Epic Games actually demonstrates the power of this market position when one of the largest technology companies in the world writes on your behalf.
One of the other suggestions I've made is that Epic itself is undertaking anticompetitive behaviour trying to leverage its market dominance in the battle royale market with Fortnite and it's dominance in the game engine machine via Unreal Engine as threats to force a player in another market, the app store, to give them a position in that marketplace that they haven't themselves earned. Microsoft's letter of support of Epic Games actually demonstrates the power of this market position when one of the largest technology companies in the world writes on your behalf.
Apple can spend millions on fighting Epic in court. Or, they could just drop about $20B of their cash horde and buy Epic. They can fold the Epic store into the App Store, and transition the platform to Apple Arcade (giving it some much needed subscription-driving content). Under terms of the sale, the Epic team gets saddled with 3 year non-compete and perpetual non-litigation clauses and the receive a ****** title under the Apple corporate umbrella. Apple obtains rights to the Unreal Engine and finally has a decent backbone for gaming development on their platforms. Apple would never notice the expense, but the rewards...
