Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Epic Games Sought Side Deal for Fortnite Prior to Lawsuit, Apple Says in Court Filing [Updated]
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
They would be fair if apps could be installed outside of the app store. Which they cannot. Why don't we have this problem on the Mac? Because we can install software from anywhere on the Mac. iOS should be no different.
How have Apple lied? Epic, by their own admission, asked for a side deal.
Allowing others to have the same deal was optional and Epic made it very clear the side deal was not contingent on opening it up to everyone.
So, c'mon. Where's the Apple lie? And why are you not holding Epic to the same level as Apple? If Apple have done anything misleading do you seriously expect us to believe that Epic have been nothing but clear and honest about this?
When you're dealing with a legal issue, splitting hairs is all what lawyers do.
OR They're selling them at a discount and then Sony add their 30%.
Not claiming they are, but you need to prove they're not here since YOU brought this up.
If only it was that simple. You can have Mona Lisa with mustache. Buy it and draw the mustache. I bought my iPhone. Can I have my alternative app store now?
No, we can never be too harsh on Epic. F&^% them. Ok, so Tim Sweeney suggested other Apps should get this deal too, fine, but let’s be honest, Tim doesn’t give a **** about other Apps, or this would have been public from the beginning. And I agree with you, Apple is in the right here. People apparently forget Apple is a business!
Do I agree with all their decisions? Hell no, I hate Face ID and want them to bring Touch ID back to the rear or glass of the iPhone like my OnePlus had (just switched back to iOS because widgets are coming to iOS 14), but this is a stupid fight on Epic’s part. Yes, developers need to make money too, and maybe Apple could change their policies based on the size of the developer or something: like a large corporation like Epic pays the full 30% and a one-man team pays 5%, but to totally eliminate the fee is not fair to Apple. It is their App Store that they have to maintain, and the servers and personnel that run it.
Ecited because the first sentence didn’t make sense.
Unless the terms have changed, you didn't purchase the software (OS), you paid for a revocable and non-transferrable license to use the software within whatever weird and inappropriate restrictions that Apple has chosen to set out [for example, there was a time when the iTunes EULA prohibited use of the software to build a nuclear weapon...]
No. Nintendo and Sony are taking a cut. Epic is just taking in less profits, either by choice or probably due to terms stating equivalent items outside the store must be the same price (Apple removed this clause in the contract back in 2011).
There are two main issues with the App Store, "Pricing," which the BIG established companies like Epic complain about, & "App Discovery," which most everyone else complains about !
It is UN-fortunate that so much attention goes to the BIG, established companies !
ONLY when the rest of us get our day in the sun will the iOS App Store have a real chance to blossom !
Specifically, there are probably 10K UN-Discovered Gem Apps in various categories in the App Store !
Compare that to the 500-1K well-known apps across the various categories.
It is UN-fortunate that so much attention goes to the BIG, established companies !
ONLY when the rest of us get our day in the sun will the iOS App Store have a real chance to blossom !
Specifically, there are probably 10K UN-Discovered Gem Apps in various categories in the App Store !
Compare that to the 500-1K well-known apps across the various categories.
Wow. Sweeney's emails are ... brazen. I have no problems with developers protesting high fees (and I think 30% is certainly high). But Sweeney effectively demands that Apple demolish the entire app store model, so Epic can make more money. But as a user I don't want fragmented app stores, because that would eventually force me to obtain some apps from less trustworthy 3rd party stores with less thorough or no privacy and security policies. The better protection against malware and privacy violations by apps is one of the main reasons why I prefer iOS over Android. I'm also not sure that this would be in the interest of developers. Not only would their apps be harder to find on 3rd party stores, but market research also consistently shows that iOS users spend more money on apps than Android users (probably in part because piracy is far less of a problem than on Android).
BTW, as an example of how "diligently" Epic would "protect device security, customer privacy, and a high-quality user experience" when installing apps outside of the app store, check this out:
arstechnica.com
BTW, as an example of how "diligently" Epic would "protect device security, customer privacy, and a high-quality user experience" when installing apps outside of the app store, check this out:
Fortnite’s Android vulnerability leads to Google/Epic Games spat
Fortnite on Samsung phones was vulnerable to a man-in-the-disk attack.
arstechnica.com
Last edited:
Actually, nope they don't want to use "Xcode, the APIs and the App Store", but they have no choice if they want to put an app onto iDevices. They would love to create their own app stores, and would prefer to use cross platform development tools than xcode, which do let them write-once for both iOS and Android.
You need to read the updated article. It shows that Epic did actually ask for this deal to be available to all developers, and not just a special deal for Epic.
For all the wrong reasons this Epic challenge could end up being a great thing for iOS consumers & developers.
Having iOS App Store operate like the Mac App Store can lead to more competition AND better protection from malicious apps that don't rely only on BIG BROTHER curation but underlying technologies a la Mac.
Macs operate perfectly fine without any monopolistic App Store. And you all know that if Apple could have gotten away with it they would have locked out the Mac too (for the sake of us all, obviously).
Apple is a business for profit. It is in their nature and that is perfectly fine. It was fine when they were the underdog, and it is fine now that they are a gigantic behemoth. We only need to make sure there is a level playing field not mandated by them that protects the underdogs.
Same thing happened with Microsoft, AT&T, etc. When they got too powerful government regulation stepped in.
And that is good for all consumers. Monopolies and Oligopolies are bad for everybody.
Forget about Epic. They are villains, but who cares?
They might bring in something good despite their selfish and greedy motives.
I am an iOS developer and most of you know originally all iOS limitations made a lot of sense as the HW and SW were severely limited in terms of horsepower.
For example apps took so long to load you had to have a screenshot of your app show up fast to create the illusion of speed for the extra 1 or 2 seconds it took for the app to really finish loading. (like copy & paste, no peripherials connectivity, etc)
Now the horsepower available rival laptops and desktops, while we still have most of limitations in place.
We should be able to connect a USB drive, code on an iPad, run an emulator, etc.
Apple keeps iOS locked without any good technical reason with the excuse of consumer protection.
The real reason is to maintain a hold of the market. Way worse than Microsoft and others ever did (or managed to do).
Epic is no angel, and is doing all of this out of their own greediness, but the actual breaking-up of the App Store could be the best thing that could happen to us all.
Having iOS App Store operate like the Mac App Store can lead to more competition AND better protection from malicious apps that don't rely only on BIG BROTHER curation but underlying technologies a la Mac.
Macs operate perfectly fine without any monopolistic App Store. And you all know that if Apple could have gotten away with it they would have locked out the Mac too (for the sake of us all, obviously).
Apple is a business for profit. It is in their nature and that is perfectly fine. It was fine when they were the underdog, and it is fine now that they are a gigantic behemoth. We only need to make sure there is a level playing field not mandated by them that protects the underdogs.
Same thing happened with Microsoft, AT&T, etc. When they got too powerful government regulation stepped in.
And that is good for all consumers. Monopolies and Oligopolies are bad for everybody.
Forget about Epic. They are villains, but who cares?
They might bring in something good despite their selfish and greedy motives.
I am an iOS developer and most of you know originally all iOS limitations made a lot of sense as the HW and SW were severely limited in terms of horsepower.
For example apps took so long to load you had to have a screenshot of your app show up fast to create the illusion of speed for the extra 1 or 2 seconds it took for the app to really finish loading. (like copy & paste, no peripherials connectivity, etc)
Now the horsepower available rival laptops and desktops, while we still have most of limitations in place.
We should be able to connect a USB drive, code on an iPad, run an emulator, etc.
Apple keeps iOS locked without any good technical reason with the excuse of consumer protection.
The real reason is to maintain a hold of the market. Way worse than Microsoft and others ever did (or managed to do).
Epic is no angel, and is doing all of this out of their own greediness, but the actual breaking-up of the App Store could be the best thing that could happen to us all.
Last edited:
You weren't harsh at all:
Look at the statement:
Epic's proposals:
1) Competing payment system
2) games store app
If Epic were allowed to provide these options to iOS device users, consumers would have an opportunity to pay less for digital products and developers would earn more from their sales. Epic is requesting that Apple agree in principle to permit Epic to roll out these options for the benefit of all iOS customers. We hope that Apple will also make these options equally available to all iOS developers in order to make software sales and distribution on the iOS platform as open and competitive as it is on personal computers.
That line seems to be added so Apple doesn't come back at them with "sorry no, that would be unfair to everyone". It also frames it so if Apple responds like they way they did right now, Epic looks like the better company. It's only a request as well, they don't give two ***** about anything but themselves.
I agree with your first sentence. Epic doesn't care about all developers.
BTW, as an example of how "diligently" Epic would "protect device security, customer privacy, and a high-quality user experience" when installing apps outside of the app store, check this out:
Fortnite’s Android vulnerability leads to Google/Epic Games spat
Fortnite on Samsung phones was vulnerable to a man-in-the-disk attack.
Ahh yes, the Wild Wild West. Thanks but no thanks.
A phone is not a computer. I use it to securely pay in stores, to make calls (including potentially emergency calls), to lock and unlock my car, store airline tickets, for location-based services, and many other sensitive things. It also stores a **** ton of personal information. It is far more important to lock it down securely than a personal computer.
I am obviously not a lawyer, so I may be off base here, but isn't this all covered under copyright? Doesn't Apple hold the copyright for iOS, and therefore the right to do whatever it wants?
And as for Epic's claim that Apple is the largest tech company ever, when corrected for standard market returns (9.3%), IBM's market cap as of Jan 1, 1984, just before Apple launched the Macintosh, would be almost $3Trillion.
Using actual market return since that time (11.28%), it's over $3.5T.
And as for Epic's claim that Apple is the largest tech company ever, when corrected for standard market returns (9.3%), IBM's market cap as of Jan 1, 1984, just before Apple launched the Macintosh, would be almost $3Trillion.
Using actual market return since that time (11.28%), it's over $3.5T.
Yet it seems that Epic completely ignores what truly benefits other developers: the 16% of apps that are paid, in some form, subsidize the 84% that are free. A free app gets the same tooling, same support, same push notifications, same cloud asset storage, same cloud syncing, etc. – the dev certainly benefits, and one would hope it's been downloaded and its users, maybe even some bit of society as a whole, are benefiting as well.
And pardon the digression that follows, but every alternative I've seen falls into one of, I think, three categories:
(1) Developer Program fees should cover the costs. I'm old enough to remember when this was indeed the business plan. Annual layout was easily an order of magnitude higher. Tools, documentation, tech notes, sample code, you name it... price tag on everything. And after shelling all that out, every step of actually getting the product into users' hands was still entirely up to you. No thanks.
For those apps that are paid, hobby-level earners, the benefit of having all payment processing, all sales tax reporting and distribution automatically handled, is HUGE. Anybody who hasn't ever dealt with all that themself is likely seriously underestimating the actual bottom-line costs (processing fees, labor, time, stress). And farming such admin stuff out isn't cheap.
(2) Fees should be tiered by revenue. So the tiny percentage of wildly successful devs should pay significantly lower percentage? Let's just call this the "1% plan", wherein the richer you are, the faster you get even richer, by systemic design. Wow, no... pass.
(3) Umpteen varieties of opening things up and/or lowering fees. Newsflash: Apple has been selling Customer Experience since 1984. If the customer didn't find a compelling value proposition in what Apple provides, they simply wouldn't be a $2T company. Nor would they have gotten there if overall, despite its remaining imperfections, this weren't on balance a (company-devs-customers) win-win-win system.
And the iPads? Their SOC are more powerful than the Airs and way more restricted, why?
And that argument of the "personal info" does not fly at all. Cannot justify BIG BROTHER "protections".
I am an Apple developer and user.
The more open the better. (More Woz and less Steve)
This has nothing to do with hardware capabilities. A phone is used very differently than a computer.
It absolutely does for me.
You may want to do the same before advising others.
Sweeny asked for a side deal first and foremost, then added that if Apple wanted to do this for all developers as well then Epic would be just Jim Dandy OK with that.
If however they didn't and only gave it to Epic them, well, Tim S would be fine with that as well.
So Sweeny was really only looking out for Epic, and not everyone else.