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Epic Games Sought Side Deal for Fortnite Prior to Lawsuit, Apple Says in Court Filing [Updated]
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Epic's software? Are you saying that Apple licenses have a requirement for the consumer not to install the software from other vendors? Indeed they have and that's exactly the issue the government needs to look at.
I have made my stand countless times on why I believe a walled garden App Store is ultimately what provides the greatest amount of good for the greatest number users, and I believe Apple has a very strong case in this regard as well.
You can search my past responses for this. It’s also probably another text snippet I should get round to adding to Copied for easier retrieval in the future.
Doubt that will happen as this is the standard in the industry of smart devices...everything from bluetooth to medical devices to Smart tvs to thermostats to washing machines etc.
Disclaimer - I came across this argument on TheVerge and am replicating it here. The points are not my own but I largely agree with them.
Read the emails between Epic and Apple that led to Fortnite’s App Store ban
These are some spicy emails.
www.theverge.com
Begin Quote:
Here is the fundamental non-technical difference between Android and iOS.
Android is openly licensed to anyone who wants to use it.
iOS has never been licensed and never will.
For iOS, this has meaning. Apple owns it. Apple owns the license to all of the software produced within the iOS ecosystem by Apple, including the App Store. In the context of this conflict with Epic what it ultimately means is that Apple will win. It is theirs. They can do what they want with it.
To stretch out that idea, let me just point out a few facts about the App Store that most people here have not really considered. If it wanted to, Apple could legally:
Choose to set the actual sales price for every app on the Store. It chose not to do that and instead give the devs the power to choose their own prices, and therefore, absolute profit per sale;
Choose to not disclose any of its App Store policies and instead have devs sign NDAs;
Arbitrarily kick off any dev it wants, for any reason, but instead it chose to set policies to be followed.
Instead, Apple chose to create a private marketplace that was fair, transparent, and gave the devs a lot of leeway in how to price their own product and determine how much money they make from a sale. This is an amazing amount of flexibility and fairness.
Compare it to the marketplace on, say, XBOX or Playstation. Do you know what margins they make? Do you know how games are priced, or chosen for inclusion on the store? No you don’t, because those devs all sign NDAs and that info it not known. Just like those markets, the App Store is a private place, and Apple (legally and ethically) gets to set its own rules. That’s how it is folks.
This complaining about the App Store has reach epic heights of stupidity and ignorance.
End Quote.
You do know that Apple advertises iPad as you next computer, right? Nobody is advertising washing machines as next computers.
I pay the Government more tax because I earn more. The people who earn nothing, pay nothing. All those services the government offer still need paying. Yes, I’m not happy about it but the only choice I have is to change government but they also charge the same rate. Sounds like a monopoly to me and is anti-competitive.
/s
Interesting reading those emails. It sounds like Epics motto, is do as I say, not as I do.Disclaimer - I came across this argument on TheVerge and am replicating it here. The points are not my own but I largely agree with them.
Read the emails between Epic and Apple that led to Fortnite’s App Store ban
These are some spicy emails.
Begin Quote:
Here is the fundamental non-technical difference between Android and iOS.
Android is openly licensed to anyone who wants to use it.
iOS has never been licensed and never will.
For iOS, this has meaning. Apple owns it. Apple owns the license to all of the software produced within the iOS ecosystem by Apple, including the App Store. In the context of this conflict with Epic what it ultimately means is that Apple will win. It is theirs. They can do what they want with it.
To stretch out that idea, let me just point out a few facts about the App Store that most people here have not really considered. If it wanted to, Apple could legally:
Choose to set the actual sales price for every app on the Store. It chose not to do that and instead give the devs the power to choose their own prices, and therefore, absolute profit per sale;
Choose to not disclose any of its App Store policies and instead have devs sign NDAs;
Arbitrarily kick off any dev it wants, for any reason, but instead it chose to set policies to be followed.
Instead, Apple chose to create a private marketplace that was fair, transparent, and gave the devs a lot of leeway in how to price their own product and determine how much money they make from a sale. This is an amazing amount of flexibility and fairness.
Compare it to the marketplace on, say, XBOX or Playstation. Do you know what margins they make? Do you know how games are priced, or chosen for inclusion on the store? No you don’t, because those devs all sign NDAs and that info it not known. Just like those markets, the App Store is a private place, and Apple (legally and ethically) gets to set its own rules. That’s how it is folks.
This complaining about the App Store has reach epic heights of stupidity and ignorance.
End Quote.
Even modern washing machines have embedded specialized microprocessors. There are all sorts of computers and because a device is labeled as computer is not directed to how one can muck with the innards as much as the end-user support that one would derive.
But this seems far afield of the topic of Epic. Wordpress and Epic have something in common, there CEOs speak out of both sides of their mouths.
Last edited:
That is valid, however, it MAY be otherwise on the developer for not making the intent of the app clear -- I haven't read the WP app description in a long time. In other words, this comment -- which I agree with:Interesting titbit in the comments section.
indignantgoat said:
Even so, the developer eventually complied, which (to stay more on the topic) Epic should have continued to do rather than make this a federal case, or gracefully bowed out but that was improbable.
The developer of Wordpress has different priorities than the owner of Epic.
I cited that quote because I find it interesting how the narrative surrounding Apple has apparently done a complete 180. For the past decade, the common refrain was that Apple was doomed because it wasn’t doing something the rest of the competitions was.
Today, as Apple hits 2 trillion, the narrative now is that Apple has become too powerful and needs to be kept in check. Yet the scenarios that surface don’t seem to help the naysayers’ cases as much as they should, because it turned out that these developers are not being as honest or as altruistic as they would initially have us believe.
Would these companies have objected to App Store guidelines if it wasn’t for Apple facing growing scrutiny from regulators? Do they sense Apple is somewhat in a bind? Based on Apple’s actions so far, it sure doesn’t look like the company is taking somewhat of a more lenient approach on App Store guideline enforcement as that action would actually end up strengthening the App Store critics’ argument that Apple applies guidelines unevenly.
In the meantime, Apple ends up in this whack-a-mole situation in which companies try to defy long-established App Store guidelines, requiring Apple to act and threaten App Store removal, or as in the case with Epic Games, terminate their developer program account.
The sharks smell blood in the water, but they will not find Apple such easy prey.
That left us with two cesspools - eBay and paypal. Why would you hope for that to happen to apple?
"Infinitely better"...?
I mean, I disagree. Apps are easier to locate, install, uninstall and update from App Store on the Mac. Other apps, I have to make sure it's a legit app, and make sure it's from a trusted source, and worry about paying for it from a third party source. If I decide I don't like it, I have to locate all files it installed in various locations. Where u might win the argument is apps that can provide more features than Apple might want to allow. But do those outweigh the advantages I mentioned? Personal preference I guess. But 'infinitely'... bit of an exaggeration.
And serious question for you... if the iPhone was unlocked and you could install anything you wanted.... what then makes it an iPhone. What would make it any different than any android phone?
Wait... are you saying you think that 30% only goes to payment processing services? So developing new software releases, developing APIs for developers to use, XCode, etc... those are... nothing?
Disclaimer - I came across this argument on TheVerge and am replicating it here. The points are not my own but I largely agree with them.
Read the emails between Epic and Apple that led to Fortnite’s App Store ban
These are some spicy emails.
Begin Quote:
Here is the fundamental non-technical difference between Android and iOS.
Android is openly licensed to anyone who wants to use it.
iOS has never been licensed and never will.
For iOS, this has meaning. Apple owns it. Apple owns the license to all of the software produced within the iOS ecosystem by Apple, including the App Store. In the context of this conflict with Epic what it ultimately means is that Apple will win. It is theirs. They can do what they want with it.
To stretch out that idea, let me just point out a few facts about the App Store that most people here have not really considered. If it wanted to, Apple could legally:
Choose to set the actual sales price for every app on the Store. It chose not to do that and instead give the devs the power to choose their own prices, and therefore, absolute profit per sale;
Choose to not disclose any of its App Store policies and instead have devs sign NDAs;
Arbitrarily kick off any dev it wants, for any reason, but instead it chose to set policies to be followed.
Instead, Apple chose to create a private marketplace that was fair, transparent, and gave the devs a lot of leeway in how to price their own product and determine how much money they make from a sale. This is an amazing amount of flexibility and fairness.
Compare it to the marketplace on, say, XBOX or Playstation. Do you know what margins they make? Do you know how games are priced, or chosen for inclusion on the store? No you don’t, because those devs all sign NDAs and that info it not known. Just like those markets, the App Store is a private place, and Apple (legally and ethically) gets to set its own rules. That’s how it is folks.
This complaining about the App Store has reach epic heights of stupidity and ignorance.
End Quote.
macOS is not licensed and never will either, and yet we don't have Apple imposing 30% cut on Netflix, Spotify, Disney+ etc there do we? And that will never happen either.
Look I appreciate your careful thinking on this and your sources, but the issue is complex and there are strong points on both sides, it's far from mere complaining, stupidity or ignorance.
In general I do agree with you that I don't see any way Apple can allow alternate App stores, as Epic is demanding, because of many things including security, privacy etc, but I wonder if Epic's request is more for legal purposes, so that they can demand Apple.
At any rate, many of the "complaints" are not just from users but from companies like Spotify, Netflix, etc, why is it ok for Apple to get 30% cut from Disney's Mulan on iOS but not on Mac? The model is wrong, obsolete and unethical, and hurts consumers and the industry and needs to be changed.
Silly Epic asking for better treatment for the good of all developers and especially for the customers, yeah right..this isn’t gonna end well for anyone, Apple themselves, stupid epic boss or the customers. It’s an infrastructure, just pay to play like everyone else. Epic’s own platforms wouldn’t allow for others to just get a freebie...if it becomes another android play store I’d be pissed with all the weird ads and malware.
I think the difference is that people generally don’t buy as many apps on PCs than they do on mobile devices. What Apple is offering here is a a huge install base of customers with strong spending power, with their credit card information on hand and a payment system that’s easy to use. There’s value in that, and while we can certainly debate over just how much of a cut is fair and reasonable for Apple, I think it’s a valid point that Apple hasn’t been able to articulate as well as they would like, and which the critics seem to have largely glossed over.
In the very least, I don’t think that companies should be able to just sidestep this and get away with not having to pay Apple a single cent whatsoever.
It’s no different from if Disney had released Mulan on iTunes, and I think that’s the whole intent - to help ensure the viability and vitality of iTunes and the App Store, which in turn ensures that the App Store remains vibrant for its users.
In the past Apple charged 30% period, then as the subscription model became more popular, they changed policies and said 30% the first year and then 15% every year after. Also, the reason Netflix still exists in the App store is because Apple allows it due to be classified as a "reader app", meaning that as long as Netflix doesn't ask for payments or allow new users through the app, they are allowed to stay.
I'm mentioning this to say that Apple can change some policies and adapt to more sensible and appropriate measures that still benefits everyone involved. This is the type of change I want to see, not as drastic as Epic is asking for, but sensible.
Researching a bit more on this I found this article that gives a really great analysis, I think you may appreciate this and see the other 'angle' a bit better: 30% didn’t kill the App Store model. SaaS did
been mention to him before.. it's just pure simple just suffer a year. A big corp like EPIC doesn't care for a year expenses but for small dev maybe a really high cost. Apple support more good then Google. Google just kick the apps while apple give respond.. Conclusion i rather paid for support then kill .
People do not want this. That is why eventually Fortnite went back on the Google Play store because people do not want to side load apps.
yes hassle, sideload apps more on B2B apps or Custom B2C or internal System. The only reason apple must have an exception on it. We don't need Apple to test the apps
What does this even mean? B2B B2C? We are talking about Fortnite here. Apple shouldn't test any apps?
Out of curiosity who is we. I don't believe there is a unanimous opinion on this.