Epic vs. Apple Takes a Twist As 35 US States and Department of Justice Weigh in to Back 'Fortnite' Maker

[vipergts2207]

Does Epic negotiate terms when selling on their store?

I assume no. Now I have a question for you. If a developer doesn't like Epic's terms, are there alternative ways for a them to get me their software onto my laptop besides the Epic store?

 

[macar00n]

Google Play side-loads didn’t result in a mass exodus, but I still agree that side-loading should be limited because it makes the device less secure and less stable.

The main change I’d like to see is for Apple to remove App Review for custom apps that are installed through Apple Business Manager. It is really none of Apple’s business what is installed using the custom apps “private app store” or with Test Flight.

Perfect, I don't mind iPhone users switching over to Android because they want to sideload that badly. Something for everyone, we don't need to tear down Apple when this apparently highly desirable sideloading ability already exists on Android

 

[tgwaste]

Just the other day, I was using a friend's Oppo phone.

I tried to help my friend recover some deleted data. Naturally, I went to the Oppo/Android app store to look for "data recovery" apps. My god. What a freaking mess. Every app on there was a scam. None of them did anything except play endless ads and then scan existing data. All the reviews, sometimes 40,000+ reviews were fake.

I get the argument for 3rd party app stores. But the average consumer is going to be duped so easily by low quality app stores and apps.

Absurd argument. Are the same people that are going to be duped going to be installing 3rd party app stores and setting those up? probably not. there is no language in this case that says the default app store should be more open.

 

[macar00n]

Are you Ayn Rand?

Are you Dr. Lexus?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Yes, that's what I said. Was it better when a bunch of vultures pulled Netflix apart into 100 inconvenient services? Was everyone like "oooh wowwww, I'm so glad there are 100 different places to stream my shows now, this is so convenient"?

Can I only watch Netflix content on my TV?

 

[macar00n]

Attorneys General are part of the executive branch not the legislature.

Thanks, I should have said lawmakers.

 

[macar00n]

In fact Apple has no reason to maintai the App Store at all which is what China’s Tencent wants. They own 40% of Epic and even 10% of Spotify. They want to remove a feature that Apple customers love so they can make a play to replace them with their phone offerings with its own Application Store integration and music services.

They legislators have no idea they are supporting a Chinese Company’s efforts to undermine an American Company.

Good point. I guess this is what we get for allowing open corruption of our politicians without accountability. They really should wear Nascar-type suits with patches from all of the different entities bribing them - oh sorry, I mean donating to their campaigns. Whoever thought of that was brilliant.

 

[macar00n]

Finally, congratulation as the first to mention pull out of most US state on Macrumors.

I'm truly the first? What an honor ?

 

[macfacts]

Most of the time they wouldn't need to follow through, because under threat of losing their iPhone most consumers would straighten their legislators right out. This approach would put Apple in a position of power. Once you put a chip in their armor, every state, every municipality, every idiot 1,500 year old cryptkeeper politician that doesn't know anything about technology, is going to follow suit and try to bend Apple to their will. Which is unprofitable in the long term, since profit is what you care about. I'm a shareholder too, just not an incredibly short-sighted one.

This is about antitrust violations, not technology violations. Politations don't need to know any thing about technology

 

[StupidOpinion]

Apple was charging the same percentage nearly everybody else was - Report: Steam's 30% Cut Is Actually the Industry Standard. The one good thing that came out of this was a reduction for the small developers by most of the players.

Also your tense is wrong - is should be charged (past tense). If you are going over $1.3 million in a year small business doesn't apply anymore so true small business only pay 15%.

Companies that want to release a game via Valve’s Steam are forced to pay a cut to Valve because Valve has a monopoly on 100% of Steam software downloads.

nobody is forced to use steam. notebook/desktop computer operating systems allow for any software. the same cannot be said for app store.

 

[Maximara]

True, they won't freely allow, they will be forced by law.

Unlikely as every state bill to try and force sideloading has either failed spectacularly (North Dakota), never got a vote because the legislative knew it would go down in flames (Arizona) or went to committee where 90% bills go to die.

 

[Maximara]

This is about antitrust violations, not technology violations

Which per the California federal court's ruling there are no federal antitrust violations that is why the judge had to do the California two step which the Ninth Court put on hold.

 

[macar00n]

These aren't being filed by legislators, but rather by the states' attorneys general who have to balance the alleged technological benefit of a single app store approach with the competitive harms associated with what they view (correctly, in my view) as anti-competitive practices. Also, Apple can do just fine with a model that allows side-loading. We already have that ability on the Mac, and iOS already allows greater control over the technical aspects of its apps (which could be applied without taking the App Store premium). Besides, if Apple indeed is correct that the App Store offers unique benefits to developers and consumers, most would continue to use it.

Also, I don't understand your Netflix example. Do you think Netflix went through an antitrust breakup?

No, I'm saying that the customer experience was violently crapified, for lack of a better term, by Netflix (one convenient, centralized solution) being torn apart into 100 different shoddy versions of it with a tiny sliver of the content each. I'm comparing that to the app store being torn apart into 100 garbage stores that are less secure, harder to use, and buggier, and the companies that own those stores playing all sorts of games to manipulate people into using them. Just go to Android if you want that (not you in particular, just saying in general). Apple's core user doesn't want that.

 

[BC2009]

Then let me explain, it's simple, Apple is now a monopoly or monopoly-like, and now it needs to share with others. It's too big and has too much influence. This is to the detriment of the population.

It's like copyright laws (well - as intended anyway) - you get your exclusive rights for 20, 25 years, then it needs to be considered public. If something experiences amazing success during that time, the creator and original holder will benefit greatly, but at some point, it is in the public interest to release their works into the wilds.

This is not to take anything from anyone, but the system was designed like this to both benfit society at large, and to give enough benefits to individuals to create new things. I think it's very much fair like that.

Of course in reality copyright law, like most other laws, have been made into a farce, where Disney extends its mickey mouse copyright forever and ever through various tricks and bribes, same for other big brands.

At this point Apple must be considered a quasi monopoly in phones - just like Microsoft once was (and still is in PC operating systems).

It is therefore in the interest of society at large to let other people build on top of the platform. 3rd party app stores are more or less a no brainer.

For example, if I want to create software that runs on people's phones, but the one company that makes half of all phones does not let me, but they also legally and technically prohibit me then that's anti-competitive behavior.

Take the example of Cydia - it is a working app store; why should Apple be allowed to use all sorts of technical tricks to lock them out? I don't think Apple needs to go out of its way to support them - but going out of their way to remove all competition when you are a monopoly is not acceptable.

That's like Microsoft wiping out the competition with Word, by adding intentional incompatibilities with 3rd party apps into the code.

I think you make some interesting points, but comparing to copyright law is an imperfect analogy. iOS is Apple's intellectual property by copyright, licensing, by patents and probably by other legal mechanisms. Taking property from somebody (or forcing them to use their property a certain way) because the government would like it that way for the public good is a tricky play considering the fifth amendment to the US constitution. Even eminent domain (used for taking somebody's home to build roads or freeways) requires the government to compensate the property owner in some way with a fair market value. Is that fair value equal to projected App Store revenue for the next 15 years? Who knows?

Its weird because, like you said, it is a "quasi monopoly". At best there is a duopoly when it comes to smartphone operating systems -- which is also true for PC operating systems (and yes, the Mac is a personal computer). For smartphones the duopoly is Google/Apple with Google having the larger market share. For PC's it is Microsoft/Apple with Microsoft having the larger market share.

However, the ruckus against Apple is not because they are the bigger player (they have less marketshare) -- it is because they have successfully targeted the customers who spend the most money. Apple's customers are the same people the app developers want to target.

Another analogy might be that Apple has built a very popular shopping mall with upscale shops where most of the money gets spent to buy goods. Some third-parties rent space and open up their storefronts selling their stuff. Imagine one third-party pays rent to Apple to sell their premium cookies to all the customers that come to Apple's mall. Now I figure that I can make more money by buying a food truck and outfitting it as a mobile bakery and I could park it in Apple's parking lot and sell cookies to the same people without paying any rent. I would then justify this because Apple has all the customers who spend serious money at their mall and they have a monopoly on the good customers.

That really is a "quasi monopoly". The App Store is that mall. You pay to be in there. Entry is cheap -- especially if you are just getting started. The small-time developer does great with Apple's model -- it democratizes app development and distribution where a small-fry can compete with a behemoth (especially if you consider the developer costs associated with becoming a game console developer for the likes of Nintendo back in 2008). The problems only arise after you become successful. If you become big enough you start asking "why am I sharing 15% or 30% with Apple?" If you were selling premium cookies, maybe you start to ask yourself if it is YOUR cookies that bring the people to the mall and you open a up a second cookie store somewhere else where you can keep more of your profits. But usually anti-trust laws are about keeping an open playing field -- the Epic dispute seems like it is one behemoth being upset that they don't control the mall instead of Apple.

Epic's CEO has even publicly said that he thinks that there should be ONE App Store where you can buy apps for ANY smartphone or PC and that Epic could run that store. Seems like just another gatekeeper (or landlord in the mall scenario).

When it comes down to it, there are only a few things that Apple is doing clearly to benefit themselves from an anti-competitive standpoint rather than to improve the user experience. The main one is not allowing external links to the open web for a landing page for purchasing an a third-party app subscription (like Netflix being able to point people to their website to buy a subscription before the app will work). If third parties could have the open web linked from their app (where it clearly launches a web browser and exits the app so users are NOT confused about what is happening -- maybe even a "You are now leaving the app" dialog). Then I think it solves the 99% of problems.

The benefits to the user for a single payment processor on a platform are huge for tracking and disputing purchases. Similar to buying something on Amazon's marketplace. Amazon guarantees the customer support even if the third-party marketplace seller does not respond. I've had Apple refund my money when my kids made in an in-app purchase from Apple TV that I did not realize was not disabled and I have had Amazon refund my money when a marketplace seller would not respond to my messages.

I don't think the court needs to grant Epic's wish list so they can setup shop to be the next gatekeeper like Apple is now -- especially for a platform that Apple owns. I think the court needs to simply strike down the parts of the App Store rules and developer agreement that are clearly anti-competitive. No need to throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

[Sophisticatednut]

I’m not sure why you are making assumptions about my motives. Also, i don’t know how you landed on me being supportive of Apple’s profits for which I gain nothing directly!

My only point is that the app store is an economy with a lot of variables and complex interactions. Apple has decided to fund the App Store with a progressive tax model. Large developers subsidize the costs of maintaining the App Store and smaller and free developers gain value with little contribution. This model has indeed been profitable for Apple and arguably has contributed to a plethora of free and low cost apps. (For good or ill, the cost of software distribution has been reduced significantly and the mobile app market is flooded with low cost apps and services. )

I repeat, my point is that any changes to the model will have consequences that many people have not considered. Time will tell if these changes end up being positive. We just shouldn’t assume that it would necessarily be beneficial for consumers.

I can probably with close to 100% confidence say if apple do some of the following there will only be customer benefits.

A) lower their standard commission rate to let’s say 5% at cost and 7% on highly profitable apps for in app purchases

B) allow developers to use Apple Pay and other payment solutions with 0% commission for In App Purchase and no support from apple or use apples solution with 15-30% commission rate and continue getting support from apple.

C) a combination of both.

 

[macar00n]

What fantasy world were you living in where Netflix was a cable tv replacement?

A world where I only had Netflix and no cable TV, and had access for the most part to everything I wanted to watch. You must have missed it, it was only something like a five-year window.

 

[gregmancuso]

Then let me explain, it's simple, Apple is now a monopoly or monopoly-like, and now it needs to share with others. It's too big and has too much influence. This is to the detriment of the population.

It's like copyright laws (well - as intended anyway) - you get your exclusive rights for 20, 25 years, then it needs to be considered public. If something experiences amazing success during that time, the creator and original holder will benefit greatly, but at some point, it is in the public interest to release their works into the wilds.

This is not to take anything from anyone, but the system was designed like this to both benfit society at large, and to give enough benefits to individuals to create new things. I think it's very much fair like that.

Of course in reality copyright law, like most other laws, have been made into a farce, where Disney extends its mickey mouse copyright forever and ever through various tricks and bribes, same for other big brands.

At this point Apple must be considered a quasi monopoly in phones - just like Microsoft once was (and still is in PC operating systems).

It is therefore in the interest of society at large to let other people build on top of the platform. 3rd party app stores are more or less a no brainer.

For example, if I want to create software that runs on people's phones, but the one company that makes half of all phones does not let me, but they also legally and technically prohibit me then that's anti-competitive behavior.

Take the example of Cydia - it is a working app store; why should Apple be allowed to use all sorts of technical tricks to lock them out? I don't think Apple needs to go out of its way to support them - but going out of their way to remove all competition when you are a monopoly is not acceptable.

That's like Microsoft wiping out the competition with Word, by adding intentional incompatibilities with 3rd party apps into the code.

Apple is huge, sure, but I don't see the monopoly. Taking the bulk of the profit does not make a monopoly.

Why must Apple be considered a quasi monopoly on phones? I am not even sure what you mean by that. There are plenty of phone manufacturers out there of which Apple is one (and not the marketshare leader). There are other phone OSs out there (of which iOS is not the market leader).

There is only one installation vector on iOS and that was by design from the very beginning. Nothing has changed and Apple has only softened the policies and fees associated with that platform. Government intervention generally comes in to play what the sole vector becomes an abusive monopoly - raising fees or negatively changing policy to target a competitor as examples.

Anyone is welcome to develop for iOS. No one is barred from doing so. All have the same level playing field to enter. They are not prohibiting anyone from developing and targeting Apple devices. The are only controlling the installation vector.

Cydia is a bad example for a couple of reasons. It was perfectly legal to stand up and serve that market as as an alternative vector. But the only means to do so was via jailbreaking your phone. Jailbreaking is not illegal but it did rely on exploiting bugs in the core OS to enable installing an alternative "OS" (in quotes for a reason). Apple did try to legal stop that and the decision was clear - it was legal. But Apple was also duty-bound to close the exploits in the OS. Just because it is legal to jailbreak and/or install and alternate OS does not mean that Apple is legally obligated to facilitate that action. Similar to how more and more Android manufacturers are making it harder to root their devices.

Lastly, in my opinion, iOS / iPhones are not comparable to a Mac or PC. The sheer number of devices and people using these devices is huge. The most common applications used on Mac and PC are email and web browsers. And even with that people are routinely exposed to privacy invasion, malware, and random performance issues caused by the cruft dropped on them from ethically questionable web sites (like Facebook). Opening iOS to the point Mac and PC is would be a mistake in my opinion. Some apps will leave the App Store and many apps will employ some of the same tracking or malicious behavior we see on Mac and PC. It will cause perforce issues on iPhones and people will complain to Apple about it. Apple will not be able to ignore people's complaints just because the issue resulted from a side loaded application -

1. Person buys iPhone
2. Person unlocks third-party stores and sideloading (accepting all warnings and risks)
3. Person installs an app that loads up tracking cruft
4. iPhone starts behaving erratically or performing slowly
5. Person goes to Apple and complains to the Genius Bar tech
6. Genius Bar tech looks at the phone and sees side loading is on
7. Genius Bar tech says "it is your problem as you enabled side loading. You agreed to that policy when you accepted the risks."
8. Person complains to anyone that can think of
9. MacRumors, the NYT, and every other news / blog site picks it up and proclaims 'iOS has major problems," Apple is purposefully slowing down iPhones to lock in users or sell upgrades," "class action suit filed against Apple for performance slowdowns." or some other clickbait crap story.

The number of people who need or want side loading and third-party stores is quite small against the population of iOS users (my presumption). It is the vocal minority on this and other tech blogs. It is a handful of developers. Bypassing the App Store does not negate the obligation for developers to pay fees to Apple. The payment method will simply shift. The fees cover a lot more than payment processing. I can see a tiered fee structure where use of specific services or APIs is limited incur one fee and full use of all services and API incurs a higher fee.

 

[macar00n]

You’ve been able to sideload on Android since its inception. Every* garbage company/institution still uses the default store of the OS/platform.

View attachment 1950521

Great, so there's a smartphone available for every single consumer that wants to sideload. Sounds like no need for 50 individual states to start taking positions on what to coerce Apple into doing when it's already available. What a waste of time.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I can probably with close to 100% confidence say if apple do some of the following there will only be customer benefits.

A) lower their standard commission rate to let’s say 5% at cost and 7% on highly profitable apps for in app purchases

B) allow developers to use Apple Pay and other payment solutions with 0% commission for In App Purchase and no support from apple or use apples solution with 15-30% commission rate and continue getting support from apple.

C) a combination of both.

That's the craziest part of this..

Apple has convinced many of their own consumers to advocate against their own interests -- in defense of "megacorp"

It's nuts

 

[Maximara]

nobody is forced to use steam. notebook/desktop computer operating systems allow for any software. the same cannot be said for app store.

You do know that that MacOS is different from iOS, right?

 

[macar00n]

This is about antitrust violations, not technology violations. Politations don't need to know any thing about technology

I disagree, I think we'd all be in better hands if "politations" [sic] had at least a baseline knowledge of what they were intending to manipulate by force of law.

 

[turbineseaplane]

You do know that that MacOS is different from iOS, right?

A distinction without a legitimate technical difference

Apple is keeping up that fake wall specifically for revenue reasons

Don't take their bait

 

[Sophisticatednut]

Apple’s fees are industry standard now, but were the reverse just 15 years ago. If they followed the standard in place when they opened the App Store it would have been 70% + $10,000 to as much as $100,000 per year for the right to be a developer. Then do your own marketing, production, sales, and support in-house.

A few greedy asshops are about to eliminate the platform that has allowed anyone with $99 a Mac and an idea, to partner with the largest company in the world to sell your product to their customers and they handle the rest. If you have a great product that they come to enjoy, they might even include you in their million dollar ad campaigns for free and change your life forever. And they give you the 70% instead of keeping that much themselves.

Greedy People are really dumb, or more likely really selfish.

You must understand that “industry standard” doesn’t mean anything from a legal point of view.

And the old “standard” existed because of actual costs. Apple doesn’t have costs to justify a 15-30% cut outside of they want to.

Apple should just allow developers to use their own solutions for in app purchases and allow them to do their own marketing then. What so wrong with this choice? Why is it okey for apple to be greedy but not developers?

 

[terrapinjess]

So with this logic, I should be able to add a Porsche engine to my Honda, right? Why can't I side load this Porsche engine I found on eBay into my Honda and expect Honda to support me?

Wait, how about this one: What do you mean I can't buy Zelda from a 3rd party digital store, download it directly from them onto my Nintendo Switch, meanwhile expecting Nintendo to take full responsibility for the quality of the entire thing!?
This is absurd! GRUMBLE GRUMBLE!
/s

Seriously what is wrong with people? If this happens, I won't be downloading a single thing from anyone. Stock apps all the way. If you don't like it, use the platform that does allow it. You have options, people. Nobody is forcing you to use Apple products. Go use the other Android stuff out there if that's what you want.

 

[Maximara]

Epic says they’re doing all this to protect “the people” right? All of us Everyman developers? Most of us developers are paying Apple 15%. Not far off from the Epic Store’s 12%. Why is Epic’s 12% some kind of magic number? When Epic says Apple is “harming” developers, they’re only talking about the top 0.5% richest developers, like Epic. Not “the people”. And given that most iPhone users will probably not want to or even know about or care about sideloading, if a developer were to exclusively publish on Epic’s store, that would be “harmful” to the developer now wouldn’t it?

Never mind that Epic admitted its 12% was not profitable. "By charging 12% commission, the Epic Games Store will not be profitable for at least several years. Current estimates indicate negative overall earnings in the hundreds of millions of dollars through at least 2027." - Case 4:20-cv-05640-YGR Document 812 Filed 09/10/21

That could fall under predatory pricing something brought up over three years ago especially as Epic's CEO wants "a single app store for all platforms". By his own words that includes "Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch". Anybody who knows anything about OSes and the market will know what a load of BS that is.