Or is it just Epic’s fault for opting into the industry standard 30% cut and then breaking the rules because they think they’re special?
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Epic Games Throwing a 'FreeFortnite Cup' Bash Before iOS Users Lose Access
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It's a retail store. Why is it any different than you going into Walmart and complaining they are making a profit selling your favourite brand of breakfast cereal? It would be like Kelloggs complaining they took a cut for selling their product.
Apple have a store and they promote and sell the products in them, and they update the store and keep it secure and provide internet bandwidth that's good so why should they do that for nothing?
And if you don't like it, got to another store or in this case, just provide your app on a web page and tell everyone to go there instead in the way Amazon do with the Kindle or the way other developers do. Don't profit from the exposure and use the services and expect to do it for nothing.
What you don't do is agree to the usage of the store, profit from it until you are successful and then complain about it in order to get publicity for a dying product.
The App Store was a game changer when it first appeared. It was much more open than many other stores, especially those for consoles that had confidential deals only available to select developers and each game needed approval before starting. The more open platforms with game web portals took much higher percentages, often in the region of 70%. 30% was brilliant. Others copied that percentage, but many of them did far less. Apple spend a lot of money on testing apps to make them as safe as possible. Unfortunately perfection is impossible when a subset of the many developers will try to hide stuff, as Epic did.
There are some interesting questions around not allowing other stores as there are positives and negatives, but Epic did not ask them the right way because of their deliberate dishonesty.
There are some interesting questions around not allowing other stores as there are positives and negatives, but Epic did not ask them the right way because of their deliberate dishonesty.
If they want to be on an Apple device, they are kind of forced to use the App Store actually. However, I feel like people have started to view smartphone companies as if they are a public utility or something. I am not a big Apple fanboy, but, I mean if they made it, they can charge what they want. Fortnite is free to download on pretty much every other device out there, so, I don't see the big deal anyway from a consumer side.
From a company side, is a bit trickier though. I can see Apple's perspective, their store, their platform, their rules. But, from Epic, people forget their game is free to play and past the initial download/version updates, Epic has to handle the server side things. If Apple was supplying them with servers to run their games on, fair enough, but they aren't. So, idk 🙄two crazy rich companies arguing with each other again for a few million here and there while the rest of us just watch on the sidelines confused. Reminding me of Samsung and Apple 5-10 years ago.
They likely only allow them because Samsung is the largest Android phone maker and can’t stop them. Google even bribed them with money to let go of the Samsung Galaxy Store, although they refused. https://techcrunch.com/2020/07/29/s...-a-google-deal-that-would-deprioritize-bixby/
I would never trust my daughter or mother in law with an Android phone as they are likely to mess with a setting or something that will completely break the device, and since every android phone has been modded by the manufacturer the settings are all in different places. Also Android devices use virus checkers yet you cant even get one for iOS because of how the OS is locked down and the security it provides. Let’s face it phones nowadays are our banks, our online shopping portal, our photo albums, and are always with us in our pockets. I dunno about you but I’d want that stuff to be secure so I choose iOS. Whilst the App Store isn’t perfect and some dodgy apps slip through, its nowhere near as bad as the official Play Store let alone 3rd party app stores.
I also like the way I can setup my daughters devices so that she has to ask me for app and in app purchases so I don’t have to worry about her spanking my credit card. My mother in law who isn’t very techy has an iPhone and iPad because it just works, she knows where to get her apps and how to pay and she knows she’s mostly safe in the App Store. I wouldn’t give up that just to allow another App Store so another company can increase their billions.
There are people who want iOS to be opened up and to become a free for all and for them Android exists and the price of entry to Android is cheaper too.
Perfect definition of Epic.
Thery're trying to make some noise but basically nobody care.
I feel like Epic is trying to weaponize their fan base to get their way.
For Fortnite, Apple is basically just processing payments (because they won't let anyone else do it) as most of the content hosting is done by Epic. Credit card companies are insanely profitable when charging 3% or less for that (1/10 of what Apple charges).
Epic doesn't want a free pass, they want competing stores and payment processing to allow the market to determine what an appropriate rate actually is. I suspect Epic also wants to run said competing store, so they aren't innocent here, but you'd have to be completely blind to not see that Apple is making money hand over fist in the services category because of the rules they've established with the App Store that lock users in an competitors out. This hasn't been about covering their operating and R&D costs for a long time, the app store has a far greater profit margin than their hardware (because they don't have to compete).
Apple reinvesting that 30% (I didn’t say ALL 30%) is what makes the developer experience on iOS far better than Android
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no its' not. they make a lot more money then they put back into the app store.
User acquisition usually happens outside the app. No company will advertise users to download the app first, and THEN ask the user to sign up. They instruct the user to sign up on the web first.
If a user discovered and downloaded the app from the App Store, Apple deserves a commission because they played a part in converting the customer into a paying customer.
That rule is fair.
I love how "fanboys" seem to think the best thing for Apple is to push away half their users and tell them to use Android or PC. Because that will help Apple in the end.... especially after they lose the entire Chinese market from WeChat being banned. Why don't you encourage everyone to jump ship domestically, great idea.
Lets face it, my computer is also my bank, my shopping portal, and my photo album. Your argument is pretty much bunk and grasping at straws to toot Tim's horn and repeat keynote talking points.
It's funny how everybody is ranting on about that 30% is a big cut. Sure it might be. But it's also the way in to 1.4 billion Apple devices across the world (in January 2019). It's all about greed and increasing margins. Like some people said. Welcome to the world of business. Either get with the program and make the best of it or leave and do it yourself.
Muhawahahahahahahaha....ok, let me re-compose myself...wait no, have 29 percent worth to go
Reinvests it in the app store......ah hahahahahaha....oh, poor poor Apple, you would almost think the App store is near operating at a loss, instead of the biggest source of margin in the company....
i didnt say they reinvested all of that. of course they make a net profit off of the app store but at the same time they put a lot of resources into making the developer experience awesome. source: i’m a developer
To be honest I read that as Apple providing likely free engineering resources to help Unreal Engine adopt and support their ARKit as a part of the Unreal Engine. Not an uncommon arrangement to allocate engineering resources towards helping a popular framework support your own technologies. I actually think it was put there with the intent that Epic would put it as is into a filing somewhere so that Apple can point to how they are helping to support Epic. If it does forebode for a product release one has to expect Apple who is legendary for keeping prerelease products under wraps exposed it intentionally. It could have been worded differently to say that engineering resources for projects would be removed without being as explicit as they were.
Its funny how people seem to think its not beneficial for Apple to have an App store, as if there would be 1.4 billion devices if Apple still kept it closed to 3rd party software and a library of millions of apps. Everyone comes in here touting all of Apple's lines as if the only ones benefitting from the App Store are the developers....
If Apple didn't open up to 3rd party developers, iOS would be dead by now and Android and Windows Mobile would be your two choices on the market. They don't need to take an insane cut for doing nothing, the App Store DRIVES iPhone and iPad sales
The game isn’t really even that great on mobile devices anyway. Much better to play it on a PC/Mac Or console with physical controls
Epic are so fake. Dropping that video so quickly exposed their stunt for what it is.
But what will actually happen next week when Apple users lose access? How many kids have an iPad and/or a Mac but no Xbox, PS4 or Switch they can play Fortnite on? Maybe some siblings use an iOS device to play together? Not sure this was the best time to take Fortnite away from this group just as they go back to school and have a lot less time...
I discussed this with my 12 yr old son yesterday. He wasn't impressed with Epic's moves but also not bothered as over the summer he and his friends have moved over to Seige and GTA for their online play. A bit of Warzone sometimes too. Some kids might buy an alternative device for Fortnite but I suspect most will keep their iOS devices too.
But what will actually happen next week when Apple users lose access? How many kids have an iPad and/or a Mac but no Xbox, PS4 or Switch they can play Fortnite on? Maybe some siblings use an iOS device to play together? Not sure this was the best time to take Fortnite away from this group just as they go back to school and have a lot less time...
I discussed this with my 12 yr old son yesterday. He wasn't impressed with Epic's moves but also not bothered as over the summer he and his friends have moved over to Seige and GTA for their online play. A bit of Warzone sometimes too. Some kids might buy an alternative device for Fortnite but I suspect most will keep their iOS devices too.
Given that I own a Mac/iPad/iPhone/Windows Laptop/Linux Laptop/Android Phone/Android TV I am in a pretty good place to make an opinion as use all regularly so hardly a fanboy. However I do feel more secure when I use my iPhone/iPad to the point where if my windows laptop starts acting stupid I instantly fire up windows defender to check for viruses even if I’ve not done anything that would be the usual vector for viruses, and this is because I know that because of the locked down sandbox nature of iOS and that the App Store is the only place where I can download code that runs natively on my phone its mostly safe.
Do I agree with all of Apple’s decisions NO! I think their stance on Xcloud is absolutely stupid as the code isn’t running on the actual phone its just a video stream, but I do like having a company with a proven track record looking out for my data so I choose to use Apple, and I recommend iOS to people who are less tech savvy as they are far less likely to mess up an iPhone/iPad.
No, not a single person on this forum believes that.
Hilarious that you claim that people do however.
You should also know that an app can only execute commands that iOS allows.
- If an app is running in a sandbox as you say, then there should be no worry about apps spreading virus or hacking you is there?
- If iOS is secure as people say, apps will never be able to compromise iOS.
- If iOS does not allow an app to run in the background, it will never be able to do so.