Apps installed from the Epic Games Store would be sandboxed just like apps installed from App Store. (Remember, sandboxing is provided by the OS, not App Store)
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Judge in Apple v. Epic Case Sides With Apple on Fortnite and Epic on Unreal Engine [Updated]
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Apps installed from the Epic Games Store would be sandboxed just like apps installed from App Store. (Remember, sandboxing is provided by the OS, not App Store)
But those apps are NOT App Stores that install other apps.
`sudo certbot --nginx` and I get a signed TLS certificate for my domain. (Or I could use openssl to generate the private key and certificate signing request and send the csr to CA)
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And you just proved my point. Epic Store app would not be allowed to install other iOS Apps because that breaks the sandbox. Thus, required the OS to be re-written.
Epic Store itself is in a Sandbox. How can it install other iOS Apps unless its allowed to break the sandbox. Or like I said, is sandbox in a sandbox even supported?
"Epic Games Store" signed Apple.
Apps from Epic Games Store signed by Epic, whose certificate the user may choose to trust and allow installation.
Problem solved.
@TigerToo You are a developer too. Please help me explain to this guy why he's making fun of himself.
You haven't explained how, a sandbox app, can install iOS apps outside the sandbox. Certificates do not matter. Its the action if breaking the sandbox that is in question here. You are twisting this to make me sound dumb, I know what certificates are, I actually have some iOS apps too. But an Epic Store, which is sandboxed, installing more iOS software does not seem possible with the current operating system code in place. That would mean the Epic Store is allowed to break the sandbox which it is isolated, in order to install other software.
Certificates do not matter here.
They need more to show that they treat all developers the same, even though it may look bad from a PR perspective. Anytime someone sneaks in code in this way, this is the result. It’s written in the ToU and it has happened to other companies previously. To do anything different here would be showing that it treats developers differently.
There’s a cult of “Apple Haters” it appears.
You can tell from the frequent use of words like “fanboy” and “sheep” even if all you do is state that “Epic disregarded the Terms they agreed to”. Which Epic did. And, if you put that person’s landlord, employer, or spouse in place of “Epic”, they’d suddenly agree that it’s definitely a baaaaad thing. 
Yes. Anyone who wants an app on the store should have to pay something for it to be there. Having a small percentage of apps subsidize all the free apps is wrong.
As far as IAP, 3rd party option should be offered along side Apple’s IAP. Then customers can choose what they want to use. If you want all your stuff going through iTunes that’s your choice.
This is something I predicted on the first day. As a business person, I want to make money and my tools are critical for that. If there are serious issues I need to deal with, I deal with them. If one supplier is antagonizing another supplier, I’m not in a position to force them to get along, so, I decide which one is more critical and dump the other.Interesting comments on TheVerge.
Especially this one by an app developer who has decided to switch from unreal to unity engine.
‘Developers are fleeing the Unreal Engine,’ Epic tells court
The latest from Monday’s virtual court proceedingwww.theverge.com
There are some innovative proprietary in-house engines that just got a boost in funding. It may take a few years for them to transition, but I don’t doubt that companies that no longer see Epic as a trusted partner (If they break agreements with others, they could break agreements with us) are taking steps to distance themselves.
You do know that if they do that, they immediately shoot from 40% of the hardware to well over 80% to 90% in the US. Services revenue will take a hit that would largely be offset by all the new phone purchases. And, Apple becomes the new Nokia. Or, maybe that’s what you’re shooting for?
Sandbox (private storage) doesn't mean you can't call system APIs. Apple once allowed Google's enterprise certificate-signed apps to install directly (bypassing App Store). Presumably there is an API for installing apps and it verifies apps' certificates.
Of course there is: as example our company uses Citrix Secure Hub and it can trigger the iOS install or update of the other Citrix Apps it manages.
It requires MDM though, which I don't think Apple makes available outside of business or education contexts.
Not sure about that, there are some music apps I’ve seen that are open source on iOS. Audio Kit One is excellent.
maybe there is some issue with open source licensing etc. I dunno
I don’t know why open source is impossible on iOS?
That’s kind of the point, the app developers don’t have options. I don’t want to get into epic and their in game coins, but a good example of this sort of thing is digital comic book stores or ebook stores. They can’t use Apple’s in app payment system and give 30% of the sale to Apple and make any money for themselves. Also, Apple directly competes with them in the same market. They would getting 30% off books and comics they themselves aren’t selling, which kind of drives business to their own book store. Which is what Apple wants, but as a consumer I would like some choices. What’s interesting to me is that the app developers are typically serving everything but the actual App Store from their own servers. I get that costs money, but the app developers are paying $100 a year per developer for the App Store. If that doesn’t cover it charge what you need to cover it. Collecting transaction fees for in app purchases for digital goods that Apple also sells just seems to be abusive of their market position. Having said all of that I like various Apple services, and I own a lot of their devices. I’m unlikely to swap to a different platform, but I do see merit in some of the complaints these developers are lobbying.
Let me ask another follow up, let’s say Apple allows them to use their own payment collection but forces Apple Pay to be included in that platform, how would you feel about that?
no, since the product you buy is physical and cannot be considered a service you enjoy in your / through your phone...
nah it’s good because apple can predict more than any other vendor what software is running in their hardware. They can also remove software that gets through that is causing problems.
“opinionated” systems and software provide predictably that gives systems stability. Endless configurations and choices is a recipe for bad systems and unreliability.
I think that’s just a basic computing philosophy.
Darth Tulhu
macrumors 68020
This is interesting, and could set a dangerous precedent if it goes Epic's way.
I think Steve Jobs said "Anyone serious about software, should build their own hardware", or something like that.
So in this case, Apple could argue they've always built hardware to facilitate a software revenue stream, which Epic is now trying to circumvent.
The issue is NOT whether Apple's curated, we-are-the-only-source-of-software is correct.
The issue is that Apple can set whatever terms it wants because the App Store is THEIRS, AND hardware customers AND developers are free to NOT USE IT if they don't like those terms.
I don't think that qualifies as a monopoly, because Apple hardware, software, and the mechanism by which software is delivered to Apple's hardware (this is an important bit) should be regarded as ONE ENTITY. "My house, my rules" and all that.
From that perspective, Epic is wrong here and they better not win this.
I think Steve Jobs said "Anyone serious about software, should build their own hardware", or something like that.
So in this case, Apple could argue they've always built hardware to facilitate a software revenue stream, which Epic is now trying to circumvent.
The issue is NOT whether Apple's curated, we-are-the-only-source-of-software is correct.
The issue is that Apple can set whatever terms it wants because the App Store is THEIRS, AND hardware customers AND developers are free to NOT USE IT if they don't like those terms.
I don't think that qualifies as a monopoly, because Apple hardware, software, and the mechanism by which software is delivered to Apple's hardware (this is an important bit) should be regarded as ONE ENTITY. "My house, my rules" and all that.
From that perspective, Epic is wrong here and they better not win this.
you see that is a misconception of the problem. Apple allows you to set whatever price you want (something that many stores and vendors do not allow).
that means you can price in any margin you want that compensates you for your risk and gives you a profit.
the issue is many competitors like to play “race to the bottom” to gain market share and wipe out their competition. If another company has millions in funding and offer their app for free and you can’t because your using your own money then they can price a 5 dollar app for nothing and wipe you out.
thats not apples fault, that’s market forces. every business has the same issue. Amazon are huge because they did the exact same thing to their competitors.
People will never apply the same rules of business to Apple as they do to everyone else because they just don’t like the fact that Apple is winning.
if Apple forced every company to charge the same price for apps you’d here complaints. If they stopped free apps you’d here complaints.
Basically, losers in any system complain. That’s life.
Audio Kit One DOES make money in other ways, though, most recently their timed app availability (super cheap for a time, then bumps up to $999.99—wish I had bought the 808 synth!
)There a many, many markets, beyond software, where distribution takes more than 50% of the margin.
Fortnite is fun, but it's not curing cancer. If anything it's harmful and addictive and their playing with fire here. It's hard to imagine a more vacuous product than v-bucks and character skins for violent cartoon game.
Okay, not many here know all the ins and outs of what is possible and what has happened, so a bit more info...
iOS was designed and built with security and sand-boxing in mind from the start.
Apps built with a regular developer account are signed with a certificate and profile. These apps can be installed locally to iOS devices on a Mac (for testing) and submitted to the app store for distribution. This type of account costs £99 a year and is the type of account Epic uses for Fortnite. Apple has not threatened to terminate this account, doing so would likely cancel all it’s certificates and disable all installations of Fortnite on iOS devices thereby rendering all in-app purchases extinct/gone (which may be a legal issue in and of itself and why Apple hasn’t done this - yet).
Apps built with an enterprise account are similarly signed with a certificate and profile. These apps can be installed locally to devices, can’t be submitted to the app store but can be distributed either via the web or an MDM solution within an organisation, not publicly. This type of account costs £250 a year. This is the type of account (to my understanding) that Epic International Group violated the terms of that resulted in Apple threatening to terminate. I suspect that whilst the enterprise account is meant for internal Epic use only, Epic has been using it like FaceBook did theirs, for devices outside of their own organisation. If so, Apple should have every right to terminate this account, it has no impact on Fortnite. This is where I think the court was very wrong.
It is actually quite a straight-forward matter to build for example a web-based app-store for native enterprise iOS apps as the certificates/profiles allow this and this is what MDM solutions provide. I worked at a company that did just this for their own internal enterprise apps (built their own internal web-based MDM solution).
So it would in theory be possible to build an app that was an app-store itself (containing links to enterprise apps hosted on the web) and submit it to the app-store. Of course Apple would never accept such an app into the app-store, as not only would the app-store app be breaking the ordinary developer agreement, the apps linked to and distributed via an enterprise certificate/profile would be violating the terms of their enterprise agreement(s).
If Epic had had the foresight they could have done just this and demonstrated that it was possible but they went for low-lying fruit instead (hiding features they could turn on/off or customise remotely). Or maybe they daren’t risk their enterprise Unreal account?
Now, Epic have expressed explicitly their desire to build their own app-store app, and have demonstrated their willingness to break agreements/app-store rules, so Apple should take note that Epic may submit a new app that has a hidden feature opening a new Epic app-store with links to enterprise signed apps. Epic could even write an enterprise epic app-store app and distribute it via the web from the Epic website, bypassing the app-store entirely, just like they did on Android but got no traction with. I can imagine them doing this just for fun, to bait Apple.
I believe this danger is real so Apple should terminate the ordinary Epic developer account immediately, even if this implements a killswitch on Fortnite for all installations. The court has not prevented Apple from terminating the ordinary developer account, the court has only temporarily prevented the enterprise account being terminated. Unfortunatley Epic could use this enterprise account to create and release an Epic app-store app via the web, this is a scenario which the court has enabled and which the court has potentially prevented Apple from stopping.
Apple could probably more simply just revoke specific certificates without terminating entire accounts, so that makes the waters even more muddy.
Hope that clarifies a little for some.
iOS was designed and built with security and sand-boxing in mind from the start.
Apps built with a regular developer account are signed with a certificate and profile. These apps can be installed locally to iOS devices on a Mac (for testing) and submitted to the app store for distribution. This type of account costs £99 a year and is the type of account Epic uses for Fortnite. Apple has not threatened to terminate this account, doing so would likely cancel all it’s certificates and disable all installations of Fortnite on iOS devices thereby rendering all in-app purchases extinct/gone (which may be a legal issue in and of itself and why Apple hasn’t done this - yet).
Apps built with an enterprise account are similarly signed with a certificate and profile. These apps can be installed locally to devices, can’t be submitted to the app store but can be distributed either via the web or an MDM solution within an organisation, not publicly. This type of account costs £250 a year. This is the type of account (to my understanding) that Epic International Group violated the terms of that resulted in Apple threatening to terminate. I suspect that whilst the enterprise account is meant for internal Epic use only, Epic has been using it like FaceBook did theirs, for devices outside of their own organisation. If so, Apple should have every right to terminate this account, it has no impact on Fortnite. This is where I think the court was very wrong.
It is actually quite a straight-forward matter to build for example a web-based app-store for native enterprise iOS apps as the certificates/profiles allow this and this is what MDM solutions provide. I worked at a company that did just this for their own internal enterprise apps (built their own internal web-based MDM solution).
So it would in theory be possible to build an app that was an app-store itself (containing links to enterprise apps hosted on the web) and submit it to the app-store. Of course Apple would never accept such an app into the app-store, as not only would the app-store app be breaking the ordinary developer agreement, the apps linked to and distributed via an enterprise certificate/profile would be violating the terms of their enterprise agreement(s).
If Epic had had the foresight they could have done just this and demonstrated that it was possible but they went for low-lying fruit instead (hiding features they could turn on/off or customise remotely). Or maybe they daren’t risk their enterprise Unreal account?
Now, Epic have expressed explicitly their desire to build their own app-store app, and have demonstrated their willingness to break agreements/app-store rules, so Apple should take note that Epic may submit a new app that has a hidden feature opening a new Epic app-store with links to enterprise signed apps. Epic could even write an enterprise epic app-store app and distribute it via the web from the Epic website, bypassing the app-store entirely, just like they did on Android but got no traction with. I can imagine them doing this just for fun, to bait Apple.
I believe this danger is real so Apple should terminate the ordinary Epic developer account immediately, even if this implements a killswitch on Fortnite for all installations. The court has not prevented Apple from terminating the ordinary developer account, the court has only temporarily prevented the enterprise account being terminated. Unfortunatley Epic could use this enterprise account to create and release an Epic app-store app via the web, this is a scenario which the court has enabled and which the court has potentially prevented Apple from stopping.
Apple could probably more simply just revoke specific certificates without terminating entire accounts, so that makes the waters even more muddy.
Hope that clarifies a little for some.