I am not sure why people are focusing on whether Epic breached Apple's terms. Of course it did, as Epic's beef is with those terms, on the basis that (in Epic's view) they are one-sided to the point of illegality. It has to breach those terms in order to precipitate the court case.
The highlighted part is simply not true. If Epic is right and Apple is engaging in an illegal restraint of trade, Epic could have sued having remained in compliance with their contracts. Their goal with their actions was to generate publicity and increase political pressure on Apple.
Whether a court will agree with Epic or Apple is a fascinating question, but I'm sure Epic is in with a decent shot - they will have had some pretty fancy lawyers advising on this strategy before making their move. It's probably not a sure thing, but Epic has a strong incentive to arrest any march towards closed platforms, with Apple being the lowest hanging fruit to set a precedent.
How is Apple the lowest hanging fruit? World wide they have under a 25% market share, in the U.S. they are well under 50%. Sony has over 50% of the video game console market. Not only do they charge the same 30% on electronic distribution, but they also charge a license fee on physical discs manufactured for their platform (no matter who presses them). In addition, unlike iOS where one could deliver an experience similar to an application
via a web browser and pay no fee to Apple, one cannot deliver a similar gaming experience on a Playstation 4 without paying Sony.
I've said it elsewhere on this forum, but I really think that too much is being made of the supposed crisis that might arise if Apple allowed the apps and payment methods it doesn't currently allow. An open platform works just fine on Windows and Mac OS - indeed it's facilitated an incredible array of software to be developed. In my view, with iOS now being used by over a billion people, the downsides of only allowing a curated walled-garden approach to the platform outweigh the positives for users.
The problem with your argument is the actual market experience of Android. As a platform it suffers for malware, piracy, viruses,
etc. all as a result of its “openness”. While it allows alternative stores, that was not enough for Epic (who sued them any way), because most people do not want that. It does not benefit users, it only benefits large developers that have subscription based services (making piracy less of a problem for them). I keep hearing people talk about the “incredible array of software” on Windows and the Mac, as if there is a dearth of options for iOS.
The biggest threat is to Apple's bottom line, but it can afford a little off that frankly.
Sorry, the biggest threat is to the user experience, with the second biggest threat being to the smaller developers who have to deal with piracy in a way that has not been an issue for them up until now. As a user, I love that I can get any app on the App Store and know I can pay for it without have to (enter) and share my credit card and PII information with some random store. I know that any App I purchase will be usable on every iOS device I have, and that I only have one place I need to go to ensure my updates happen. While you may enjoy needing to enter your information a million times and be happy to give out your personal details to any random company on the net, stop trying to say that it does not matter. If that is the environment you want, you have an option that already supports that - Android. It is the dominant platform with all the openness, so you should be able to get every app on it. If the apps are not there, please explain why that is the case.
What constantly frustrates me about people with your views is that it is not good enough for there to be an option that supports what you want, you want to ruin the system that works the way millions of others want it because you can not accept that maybe the differences be iOS/iPadOS/tvOS/watchOS and Android are caused by these differences. You say things like: “Windows allows these things and look how great that worked out!” I look at that, and the problems with Android and say: “I want none of that.”
I also think it would be great to have Steam or the Epic Games Store on iOS.
Glad you think that. I think it would terrible. The last thing I want is more fragmentation. I do not want to have to maintain a million different store accounts, worry about which app is on which store and how that affects my play rights, and a million other things like that. You hold up the Windows as an example of this great experience and I think that is the last thing I want. Had the internet existed when these platforms started and had sandboxing been an option technically, I think of how much better users would have had things. You look at the fragmentation and say: “Awesome. I am sure that gives us competition.” I say it is terrible and takes resources that would be spent making better products and spending them on supporting different purchasing APIs, library APIs, and other things that add nothing for me as a user.
Same with Geforce Now and Xcloud.
I am less opposed to these, but I will point out that their existence makes the chances of better native options less likely.
It would also be good to have Kindle allow you to buy books within the app.
Yup, because giving the monopoly provider even more power is good for the consumer. Got it.
Competition might encourage the App Store to be a bit more sophisticated too - reviews, curators, wish lists, forums, etc. that presently are absent and currently there is no competitive pressure on iOS to push this.
There is competition from Android and on Android there is competition from other stores. Are the reviews, curators, wish lists,
etc. better over there? I do not think so.
Epic's and Apple's motives are both profit - which is fine of course, you can expect nothing more of corporations. People may love Apple (or Epic), but they don't love us back. It's just not something companies can do.
If Epic wins Apple might even find that having others more invested in iOS cements it as the market leader in the same way that Windows was cemented as the market leader through software support. Interesting times.
It is not the market leader except in profit share. It has under 50% share in every market. If Epic wins we all lose.
