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Ummm….
One is trying to destroy user safety & the other’s entire business model to sidestep spending a solitary penny on an expensive infrastructure that they’ve reaped tens of millions of dollars from- whilst the other is working to protect your data/privacy & their own profit.

SUPER weird if you think both of those are the same level of “moany”.
Some people just come onto this forum to complain. The user you replied to is one of them, I guess just ignore the troll.
 
The whole Epic law suit is somewhat a bad joke. Then again one can view it as an exercise in which western legal system is turned against itself. The fact remains that even though Tencent has 40% ownership it has power over Epic Games decision making due to its financial power and ties.

When we examine Epic Games Store on PC we are met with controversy over alleged data mining and drive towards exclusive distribution rights. Let’s face it, its all done on money from Chinese government funds which Tencent is using. One can ask why Chinese government is actively financing western game companies and trying to push software on every possible device. Maybe they just want to be “king of gaming“ or maybe they just like to have application on every possible device which can install other applications. Nah, its just gaming...
 
I believe it’s just a matter of time before the hammer drops and Apple is found to be in violation of the law. I just don’t see how Apple can win against antitrust concerns on a long term basis if it continues on a campaign of restricting trade between users and app developers. Some developers may have a very different vision to Apple of what an app can be. Who is Apple to restrict this innovation? Who is Apple to restrict trade?

Apple profits off of being the sole App Store operator; it is an iOS App Store operator monopoly, and it takes a cut of all in-app payments for electronic goods. Curious that Apple doesn’t take a cut for physical goods like Uber or Lyft. Why the distinction? What is the basis?

Users should be given the choice to get their apps from wherever they please. If iOS is opened up to allow other app stores to operate, nothing is forcing users who are fearful of potentially bad app stores to use th. Android allows the use of other app stores besides the Google Play Store, but you don’t have to use them if you don’t want to.

Yes there may be concerns of user privacy if iOS users download apps from other app stores, but users of macOS face this same problem, and yet Apple hasn’t locked that platform down.

Will be interesting to see what happens in this space.
I see a lot of people making this point but completely missing the following:

If an app I want is currently available in the App Store but in the future is only available in a different store, if I want that app I HAVE to use the other store whether I want to or not because the developer removed the app from the store I want to use.

The choice to only use the apple App Store is therefore no longer my choice and becomes the developers choice instead, or I have to do without the app. Both options are bad for me.
 
Everyone knows that Android OS has been treated as a competitor to iOS by the press and the tech industry since it originally appeared on the market. The whole "open" vs "closed" thing was treated as the defining difference for consumers and developers very early on when it came to choosing an Android or iOS device. What's the result? Android hardware typically has a larger market share than Apple but generates less revenue for developers. What's the general conclusion for that? That iOS customers are more likely to spend money on software than Android customers. So, obviously, the market that Epic is describing (where customers given an "open" market are better served) doesn't actually exist in practice.
 
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Love it. Fanboi's defending Apple because they are Fanboi's. Apple doesnt give a **** about anyone except their profits. Apple makes good products but from time to time someone needs to have a look at their practices.
Why not add something about what practices you think should be looked at and why?
 
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They're both soulless entities that spend their days filching because that's all they know.

One creates user friendly devices and software for productivity.

The other had an online game addictive like tobacco with loot boxes and had Nazi and pedos openly grooming kids.


Anyway I only play retro games because it puts me in a happy mood to remember the days before Zuckerberg and Dorsey fill the world with hate, misinformation, scams and lies.

The days before Andressenn Horowitz invented crypto behind a fake Japanese personality and ruined the world with this climate polluting criminal pyramid schemes on top of more pyramid schemes that raised money for fascists and cyber crime.

In a few years I hope to retire and throw all computers and communication devices in the trash and never go online again. I advise everyone do the same if these monster CEOs and Vampire Capitalists are still trying to manipulate the world and be everyone’s Overlord.

They think the word ‘decentralized’ will fool people that nobody is overlording and we will be free. Don’t believe it.
 
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I hate that Epic (and their coalition of whiners) wants to turn my iPhone into an Android PoS.

if they win it will eliminate free choice for consumers. The choice of Open vs Closed. Many iPhone users choose iPhone because of its closed nature in comparison to Android and these idiots want to take that choice away and in essence poison the Apple.

if you don’t like the way Apple operates then sell your Apple gear and buy an Android (you’ll probably make money even since Android phones are a dime a dozen) and don’t develop for iOS. No one is forced to own or develop for Apple. But if you want access to Apple’s customer base you need to follow their guidelines and support their ecosystem with their fair split.

I choose Apple for its closed and protected system and I don’t want to support any Developer that wants to destroy that thinking their entitlement deserves access to me for free.
 
As soon as Apple loses one case, or one legislative change in any jurisdiction, anywhere in the world, and a law or judgement is written that Apple has to allow alternative payment options in their appstore, or alternative appstores on iOS, the jig will be up everywhere.

Apple has to win every case.
Epic need only win once.
 
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I still have yet to hear a VALID legal argument for their beef with apple. Sure apple has policies that suck...name a business that doesn't...but to cry wolf now just seems so disingenuous. I believe they call it the "cost of doing business."
 
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Apple uses the data privacy barrier here but really it’s for control and profit. iOS itself does many great things to ensure that your data is safe; little is actually done by the App Store in that respect.
Lol, ok buddy.

If that were true, Android would have the same mythical protections that somehow disallow bad actors to slip nasty payloads into side loaded apps & they’d be exactly on par from an app quality standpoint.
 
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I hate that Epic (and their coalition of whiners) wants to turn my iPhone into an Android PoS.

No, they want to allow individual consumers to turn their phones into something more like Android. Just like the right to burn a flag doesn't mean you have to burn a flag, the right to have alternate appstores doesn't mean you have to use them.

if they win it will eliminate free choice for consumers. The choice of Open vs Closed. Many iPhone users choose iPhone because of its closed nature in comparison to Android and these idiots want to take that choice away and in essence poison the Apple.

Apple will still be able to offer an Appstore, they will still be able to offer their own purchasing platform. If these things are truly valued by developers and consumers, if they are good enough to thrive in a competitive marketplace, they will thrive. I can't see why you would be worried, if they're as good as Apple claim.


if you don’t like the way Apple operates then sell your Apple gear and buy an Android (you’ll probably make money even since Android phones are a dime a dozen) and don’t develop for iOS. No one is forced to own or develop for Apple. But if you want access to Apple’s customer base you need to follow their guidelines and support their ecosystem with their fair split.

Or, lobby your government to implement regulations so that Apple is compelled to allow competing payment systems, or competing app stores, that people can choose to use, or choose not to use.

Regulation and lawsuits by government consumer protection organisations, is why Apple now offers cheap battery replacement for out of warranty phones, rather than their earlier policy or requiring people to buy entire remanufactured iPhones, just to get a fresh battery.

Apple has been dragged, kicking and screaming every step of the way towards making their products conform to the expected norms of consumer products all around the world. It's reasonable to assume the software side of things will follow the same path.

I choose Apple for its closed and protected system and I don’t want to support any Developer that wants to destroy that thinking their entitlement deserves access to me for free.

iOS has the security infrastructure to ensure a "bad" app from a "bad" appstore can't compromise your data, any more than a "bad" app from Apple's appstore can, and Apple's appstore has many, many "bad" apps. Perhaps if they had meaningful competition for developer and customer revenue, they would actually police the Appstore such that the reality would match their claims. Competition in appstores will make Apple's appstore better. It's nothing to be afraid of.

We don't see macOS burning down in a hellswamp of insecurity with independent appstores, iOS will be no different.

Let's get down to it, what you're really afraid of, is that Apple's Appstore and payment processing is so bad, and so hated by developers, that all the apps you want to buy will dump Apple's systems the first chance they can get. You're afraid of this, because you know deep down, that Apple's offerings aren't actually good value for what they do, but rather are the very textbook of the decline to mediocrity that goes hand in hand with any rent-seeking monopoly.

But you shouldn't worry - if the apps you like won't stay on the App store, someone else will make functionally equivalent apps that will - Apples App Store and Payment Processor is a "sweet solution".

And if you absolutely HAVE to use an app from a developer using a non-Apple billing system, do you really think they're going to make it any worse in terms of friction to Apple's system already? I can already use touchiD on my iPhone, to make purchases with my credit card on my Mac. That's exactly the experience you'll get with 3rd party appstores or payment processors - it'll be just like buying with Apple Pay on the web.
 
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I believe it’s just a matter of time before the hammer drops and Apple is found to be in violation of the law. I just don’t see how Apple can win against antitrust concerns on a long term basis if it continues on a campaign of restricting trade between users and app developers. Some developers may have a very different vision to Apple of what an app can be. Who is Apple to restrict this innovation? Who is Apple to restrict trade?

Apple profits off of being the sole App Store operator; it is an iOS App Store operator monopoly, and it takes a cut of all in-app payments for electronic goods. Curious that Apple doesn’t take a cut for physical goods like Uber or Lyft. Why the distinction? What is the basis?

Users should be given the choice to get their apps from wherever they please. If iOS is opened up to allow other app stores to operate, nothing is forcing users who are fearful of potentially bad app stores to use them. Android allows the use of other app stores besides the Google Play Store, but you don’t have to use them if you don’t want to.

Yes there may be concerns of user privacy if iOS users download apps from other app stores, but users of macOS face this same problem, and yet Apple hasn’t locked that platform down.

Will be interesting to see what happens in this space.
mrochester brought up a good point with regard to this actually leading to a lack of choice for consumers in #29, this is a concern I share very much. While I'm sure a good chunk of developers would cross-publish, some would not, especially the big ones that are better equipped to build out their own app store. Companies like Microsoft (just for example) might decide to do their own app store to bypass Apple, and now if I want Office (or need it for work) I have to go out to yet another app store and take that risk.

There is also a second thing I think people get confused on here, and that is what the "market" people are accusing Apple of having a monopoly in.

The iOS App Sore, is NOT a "market" that one can have a monopoly over. That'd be like saying Walmart has a monopoly over Walmart stores. I think the only relevant market here is the smartphone market in which Apple is one of two major players in. One can argue that two players isn't enough, and I think that type of discussion is a fine one to have, but that is not the discussion that Epic is trying to make. Also in this vein, the fact that there are only two major smartphone variants (iOS and Android) has come about on its own accord; pretty much via free market forces (Windows phone was there for a bit but died off). Apple has not gone out and bought other smartphone makers (their competition) to ensure that they retain their position in the market. Eg. They did not do the equivalent of what Facebook did with Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. The barrier to entry in the smartphone market is a high one for other companies to enter; but nothing about what Epic is doing is attempting to deal with that.
 
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The iOS App Sore, is NOT a "market" that one can have a monopoly over. That'd be like saying Walmart has a monopoly over Walmart stores. I think the only relevant market here is the smartphone market in which Apple is one of two major players in.
The trend world-wide in competition policy, is in fact the opposite. iOS as a platform is being defined as a self-contained market. Android as a platform is being defined as a self-contained market.

Apple is being judged for how it, as the gatekeeper for one of those markets, restricts competition for alternatives to Apple's services (payment processing, app binary download hosting, storefront sales) within that market. Just as if they prevented alternative email or camera applications.

Competition law is not the simplistic thing Apple's supporters would like to believe it is, and "Smartphones" as a whole, is not some arbitrary stopping point to the level of granularity that competition law is designed to regulate.
 
Let's get down to it, what you're really afraid of, is that Apple's Appstore and payment processing is so bad, and so hated by developers, that all the apps you want to buy will dump Apple's systems the first chance they can get. You're afraid of this, because you know deep down, that Apple's offerings aren't actually good value for what they do, but rather are the very textbook of the decline to mediocrity that goes hand in hand with any rent-seeking monopoly.
No, I'm afraid of developers being so cheap they use a subpar payment system that compromises my personal financial data because those systems don't want to invest in the level of safety, security, and ease of use like Apple's native system is.

Developers are going to get a ice cold bucket of water dumped on their heads if this gets dismantled when they realize what operating like Android does to their profits. There is a reason why the App Store is more profitable than the Play Store. and it comes down to Piracy. Why pay for an app when you can just download a cracked copy of it and install it super easy (complete with spyware and malware!) Just watch as developers lose money.

Unfortunately it will affect all developers even if they are perfectly and rightly happy with Apple's current system.
 
No, I'm afraid of developers being so cheap they use a subpar payment system that compromises my personal financial data because those systems don't want to invest in the level of safety, security, and ease of use like Apple's native system is.

Developers are going to get a ice cold bucket of water dumped on their heads if this gets dismantled when they realize what operating like Android does to their profits. There is a reason why the App Store is more profitable than the Play Store. and it comes down to Piracy. Why pay for an app when you can just download a cracked copy of it and install it super easy (complete with spyware and malware!) Just watch as developers lose money.

Unfortunately it will affect all developers even if they are perfectly and rightly happy with Apple's current system.
The more worrying impact is that it will leave us consumers with the choice of android or apples version of android.
 
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View attachment 1751226

That's a British flag btw.
Yes, it is called the Union Jack and is the flag of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
The point being that the U.K government is looking into Apple and it's alleged abuse of power.
The clue is that Northern Ireland considers itself and wants to be part of the U.K, most citizens there do that is, some do not.
 
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