I really wish there was a third party - the customer - actually represented in this trial. Apple and Epic arguing over what is best for the customer, while clearly they are having their own interests in mind, screams for the actual customers to be represented.
The whole argument about them promoting an app „for free“ is a bit ridiculous. They clearly knew the amount of commission they were going to earn from pushing that app through their App Store - so please admit that you clearly didn‘t do this out of the good of your hearts.
The same goes for the portrayal of „look how much money they made through us“ - yes - and look at how much money they made you along the way. I mean if Epic made 600 million, than you made about 260 million - from the very same people that paid you for the hardware.
I think if the App Store is such a tremendous value, why don‘t you ask users to pay for access to that App Store directly. Let‘s see how valuable everybody thinks the App Store is when they actually have to pay an access fee directly to Apple.
Meanwhile the Apple AppStore is terrible for finding anything. It’s just a horrible list of most downloaded apps and a search bar, and even the search feature is bad.
For every other purpose like getting proper recommendations, you have to consult the internet.
Imagine having a “we think you will like these games because you played...” feature that works as well as Spotify’s or Steam’s recommendation engine. That will be a game changer for everyone, both consumers and developers.
I hope Apple will be forced to allow 3rd party stores, so we can get an Epic Games Store app, or a Steam Games Store app on our mobile devices.
The only thing worse than having multiple game launchers like we have on PC is having only one, and you cannot bypass it, and it’s awful, and it still asks for 30%.
I want multiple stores. Or I want Apple to seriously rethink their shitty store app. Preferably both.
Good grief, Amazon is terrible for finding things, but the Apple App Store is several degrees worse. I do a search for an app that is in a top apps list, and it doesn't show up in the search results. WTF?
The whole App Store experience shows major contempt for your customers, Apple. That sound in the distance is chickens coming home to roost.
I have just given up on the Apple app store entirely at this point. It feels like 99% of it is pure garbage, and a significant portion of that garbage is trying to trick me with in-app-purchases.
Every time I think "I bet there's an app for that", I go away disappointed.
It sounds so hollow when the Supreme Leader of Apple brags about their store having 10.000.000.000 apps. Sure you do, and maybe 20 of them aren't total crap.
The real problem here is that companies are forced to accept apples terms. Because apple controls every level of the stack, to opt out of the App store ToS you have to opt out of the store, the OS, and the hardware.
If there was a way to install apps outside of the store this would not be an issue. Most users and developers would still use the app store since it provides value but devs who feel that they can supply their own marketing and payment processing can do it themselves.
> devs who feel that they can supply their own marketing and payment processing can do it themselves.
The issue I have with that is that then a ton of companies think it's a good idea to ship a crappy "launcher" that needs to run on startup, taking up resources in the background while providing little to no added functionality. We can see that with PC games; it used to be just Steam, but now there's the Epic Games Launcher, Origin, GoG, and a bunch of more obscure launchers that need to be installed to play particular games.
And this is a good thing, competition between this stores is good for the users, some users got free games, some developers got better deals.
The "needs to launch on startup" is FALSE , you can have this launchers set no to start at all and you launch the game and the launcher will start if needed (not all Steam games need Steam in background).
FYI GOG launcher is optional, you can just download the game from the website with a browser and then install it as in old times.
Competition is good and except the Epic drama I did not see anyone complaining the GOG, HumbleBundle, itch.io or downloading from Patreon is a bad thing for PC. I expect though if Apple blocks all launchers on the new OSX for ARM then an army of people will say that downloading a small game directly from Patron is too complicated and insecure for the average Apple user mind.
It's not a good thing that I need 6 stores installed to play the games I've bought, each with their own updater pulling several gigabytes a week off the net just to keep the store app up-to-date.
I'd be interested to see whether any jurisdiction would hand down a consumer mandate for unbundling the DRM component from the storefront app; the former only updates occasionally.
Better to have the option of 5 stores that you can launch when and if you want then only have a Windows/Apple Store that will have more expensive games, will censor stuff based on "american values", will DRM shit so you can't say swap a .dll with something that works better(some old games that work bad on Win10 can be fixed by using a different directx.dll), you could not mod the games - basically you are telling PC people that a console is the best thing because it has 1 small advantage but it fucks you in 12 different ways(more expensive stuff and no freedom)
Fortnite is not the only game rejected by Apple. There are many small games that have versions for Windows,Mac,Linux and Android but not iOS.
You are ignoring that except the exclusives you can game most of your games on one store. I do not support exclusivity for one store either and I would prefer I always had the option to buy the products directly from the developer. Like my Intellij subscription I don't want that Microsoft or other big american company gets 30% of the money this hard working developers deserve because I am forced to use a middle man.
I find it hard to believe that all stores combined patch a single gigabyte in a week, let alone every store patching multiple gigabytes. The size of the stores and their patches are negligible compared to installing any modern game.
Competition is good for the customer when the goods are commodities. Media - books, songs, videogames - are mostly non-substitutable goods: if you want to watch Star Wars, you won't settle for an episode of Friends instead. As soon as exclusive releases are allowed, customer benefits from competition evaporate.
The irony is that Epic pays companies a sack of money to have exclusive right for a title, to have it temporarily only available on EGS. I don't like to be bound to any launcher or store. Apple doesn't force you to only use their own launcher; only on their own platform, or if you use their platform to complete the sale (which sounds as odd as it is).
> The irony is that Epic pays companies a sack of money to have exclusive right for a title, to have it temporarily only available on EGS.
But that doesn't require you to use EGS for anything else, and the cost of using multiple game stores is minor, because installing them is free.
And how do you mean that Apple doesn't force you to use only their own launcher and platform? If I want iMessage, I not only have to buy their phone hardware, and their platform, and get it from their store, I also have to get everything else from their store even if I don't want to. To avoid this I would have to buy two separate phones at a cost of hundreds of dollars, with two separate phone contracts and phone numbers, and then carry them both around. Nobody is going to do that, whereas installing multiple game stores on your PC is the rule rather than the exception, exactly because you can easily have more than one on the same device.
The thing with games and such creative content (such as also movies and series) is the hype is after release. If you watch Game of Thrones a year later because that is when it is available, you end up with spoilers.
> To avoid this I would have to buy two separate phones at a cost of hundreds of dollars, with two separate phone contracts and phone numbers, and then carry them both around.
I believe you can use iMessage on iPadOS and macOS as well. You can even use a Mac as relay via Airmessage [1]. Its true that some Apple software is specific to their platforms though.
Its annoying having to use different IM clients or different e-mail addresses or different store launchers. They each use their own resources, each have their own attack surface, requires maintenance, and I need to remember who/which to use where. An abstraction layer like Lutris (or Pidgin/Bitlbee/Jabber/..., or (Neo)Mutt instead of e.g. Yahoo Mail) is my preference. This way, you stick to the same UI.
Just to be clear, I don't necessarily disagree with your disliking of Apple's practices. Its just that I find Epic's behaviour also annoying, and its precisely them who complain.
> The thing with games and such creative content (such as also movies and series) is the hype is after release. If you watch Game of Thrones a year later because that is when it is available, you end up with spoilers.
So you get it from whichever store has it early. That's kind of the point. But as long as that store isn't requiring you to buy their particular kind of device or preclude you from using other stores on your device, it's not the same problem.
> I believe you can use iMessage on iPadOS and macOS as well.
It's a messaging app. It goes on your phone. And that would still require you to spend hundreds on an Apple device, then hundreds more on an Android device.
> You can even use a Mac as relay via Airmessage
Which not only requires you to buy both devices, now the Apple device has to be a desktop which you have to leave turned on and burning electricity at all times in order to receive messages on your phone.
It isn't not a problem just because you can work around it by walking up hill both ways in the snow every summer, it's a problem because people aren't actually going to do it that way.
> Its annoying having to use different IM clients or different e-mail addresses or different store launchers. They each use their own resources, each have their own attack surface, requires maintenance, and I need to remember who/which to use where.
None of that stuff is huge. It doesn't prevent people from doing it in practice.
> An abstraction layer like Lutris (or Pidgin/Bitlbee/Jabber/..., or (Neo)Mutt instead of e.g. Yahoo Mail) is my preference. This way, you stick to the same UI.
Yes, exactly, which then addresses your concerns with having multiple stores -- but only if you can have multiple stores and use a single interface for all of them.
For example, where is the version of Pidgin which runs on Android and is compatible with iMessage without using some kind of farcical relay system? Who is the party that prevents this from existing?
> Its just that I find Epic's behaviour also annoying, and its precisely them who complain.
It turns out that if you apply "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" to the legal system, nobody would have standing and perpetrators could never be held to account. Fortunately that's not how it works.
- as a developer you don't get "a sack of money" but you get a 30% tax (larger then Epic
- as a user you don't get free games, discounts or the option to wait for the exclusivity to expire. On top of that you will never(probably) have the option to touch the game files and mod it.
This is the same as with consoles, and people are fine with it.
The App Store also pays out more revenue to developers than other stores, a major reason being that you can literally access all the users on iOS by publishing on just one store.
People are not fine with it, if you can't use a PC for gaming then you have 2 shitty choices (expensive games, different subscriptions to unlock features, pretty bad customer support) BUT this is a bad argument why Apple or other smarphone or PC seller can just lock things up, the judge should consider the potential hard done to users and not the history of game consoles.
They also have the choice to avoid smartphones altogether. What they want, though, is the ability to use apple hardware and non-apple software. The only reason they can't is because Apple won't let them, unless they pay a 30% commission
The only reason the want to use the Apple hardware is because Apple makes it and comes with Apple software and Apple roadmaps.
If being more open magically offered the same quality all kind of third party open platforms would have flourished.
But even in the semi-closed Android you have 95% of mobile malware according to surveys, devices abandoned without updates after 1-2 releases, tons of crap trojan apps, widespread spyware, and so on...
A third party app store can be fine at first. "You can chose whether to use it or not" after all.
Then some major software only comes for that store, and now you don't have either a unified store, or a way not to use 2 stores (since you need the software).
Then each major vendor (Google, Adobe, Amazon, etc) make their own app stores on the platform. Because, why not?
Oh, and Facebook can demand you get their app from their store, where it comes with all kinds of private API abuse and surveillance (some of this might be solvable with stronger sandboxing, if it's not deemed "anti-competitive" itself).
Then there are all kinds of minor stores, luring your less tech savvy parents, siblings, etc, with BS offers, more malware, pirated versions of software, etc.
Oh, and there are "free" stores, you can just install, all kinds of shady stuff that ocassionally roots your iPhone with 0-days and is not revocable.
Suddenly app developers don't feel so good about this
ability to have multiple stores. They mainly wanted lower Apple rates, but now they have to ship to different stores, track different vendor rules, and so on. And if they stick to a store or two, they're less discoverable. Now you have meta-services that ship your app to many stores and handle the hassle. But they can not do much for the free stores that give pirated copies of your app, or full title+branding+UI rip-offs of your app by small e.g. Chinese devs.
And if one of the big app stores gets popular, they now have control over the platform too. Apple wants to move forward with an API change? Not so fast, the big app store doesn't agree (similar to how Apple was beholden to the goodwill of Microsoft and Adobe back in the day).
Apple owns the marketplace on their platform. When they undermine competing payment systems using their monopoly power then they appear to be acting anticompetitively in a manner that is against the consumers best interest.
This is only an issue when they use their monopoly power to undermine consumer interests.
Exactly, except for Fortnite (very popular ) and other apps tha tApple don't like(Hey,Wordpress) or apps that US does not like ,and the apps that indie developers can't afford to publish(small games that have Win,Mac,Linux and Android version) , and maybe GPL(maybe it changed) apps, but except all those apps consumers can get all the apps they want.
But can you write me a logical phrase about what should happen if a judge declares that Apple can continue locking the phones because there is a duopoly and the next day Google does the exact same thing since now is 100% legal.
IMO consoles are an historic thing, this days I think if you pay full price to a console then you should have all the rights to unlock it, and if Sony wants to limit me then this should only work if I did not buy the product but I have a subscription for it.
Other giant difference between smartphones and consoles is that smartphones and internet are required for a majority of people (banking, messaging/email, COVID apps, 2FA apps ) I can't tell my bank please make an app for this free OS, or my company please make a 2FA app for this free OS and the reverse the company/bank can tell us "use Android because Apple banned our app because the small bug fix update triggered someone"
So you see this smartphones as just different kind of consoles. Maybe you just play games on them but reality is more diverse. For example in real world you are forced to own a smartphone by work or society , like parking,banking, different activities are this days setup for phone users and if you don't own one you are forced to do a lot of extra work.
A few years ago some money exchanges were abusing the users by having large commissions rates, then a law was passed so this commissions will be printed in large fonts outside the exchange, this worked so maybe we can force Apple to print with large fonts on the box "30% of all future transactions go to Apple" (Apple can add with smaller fonts that they have some special exceptions) or "Apple decides what can you install and can change it's mind at any moment".
> PCs only became open due to IBM's failure to keep ownership of their creation
> Since Windows 8 I am a big fan of Windows store app
Do you think it would have been better if PCs were not open (so going through IBM or Microsoft was the only effective way to distribute software)?
In certain ways the freedom that PCs allow is less convenient than having everything go through a central authority, but as one example I don't think web browsers would have been allowed to develop as they did under this model (since forcing more areas of software development to use platform-specific native apps would be more advantageous for the platform owners with market share).
Consumers get their apps for ~40% higher prices than if developers could offer them directly (granted, payment processing isnt free anywhere, but Apple charges an order of magnitude more than the alternatives).
This is like if Apple said that you can't download any other software on your Macbook, unless you paid Apple 30% and bought it from their exclusive store.
Why is this any different from Apple saying that you can't download other software on your Macbook, unless you pay Apple 30% and buy it from their store?
For what it is worth, people actually in the real world do just that: buy property adjacent to a municipal airport and then cause problems for airport users... All the time. (Pilot for almost three decades.)
In developed countries there are laws preventing sale of properties where noise may be so high that it's detrimental to one's health. So if the competition in market is hurting the merchants or consumers, it should be rightfully outlawed.
But if the judge decides that Apple abuses are legal the Google will do it too, then the you will say "Buy a FSF phone if you don't want Silicon Valley abuses, nobody is forcing you to have a phone or Internet"
What abuses? They are doing nothing that game consoles haven't been doing for 40 years now, or mobile stores since J2ME, Brew, Windows CE/Pocket PC locked to the mobile operator.
OK. Let's assume that Apple wins. Smartphones makers can legally completely lock the users so you run only what they approve. In your opinion if Android is locked then is the argument "use Android if you don't like iOS walls" completely obliterated?
I am curious if TikTok gets banned and then will Apple remove the app from existing phones or somehow block it and will they do it for non US citizens (inside and outside US).
Your arguments are ilogical, try thinking more before commenting, is like saying "We could shit behind our homes since generations but the new king is demanding we build toilets and also to wash our hands" - if something was legal in the past for millennia does not mean it should not change.
Consider that there will be a judge and a trial and you can't claim that someone else started it , you need to show the judge that the users are not hurt by Apple businesses and IMO if we are lucky a law will be passed that will also fix console issues too.
I am looking forward for the judge to validate Apple's decision.
People in Bielorussia are being hurt.
Apple is not hurting anyone, beside a couple of people that has been giving money to Apple because they do UNIX, instead of supporting Linux OEMs, and now complain that Apple isn't the hippie they came to expect.
>I am looking forward for the judge to validate Apple's decision.
I will be OK if it is cleared what rights you have on your device, can Apple update the TOS whenever they want? are those pages of TOS you agree when you buy a device enforceable? What is the limit Apple can censor information that user receive from third parties.
When I bought my iPhone I knew that I could only use the AppStore. I actually bought the iPhone because of the AppStore, the strict rules Apple has for developers and I prefer that no side-loading can occur.
If you or any consumer feels lied to, misled or falsely advertised to, they should return their device to Apple.
If enough people choose non-Apple products then Apple might change its position. Until then, buy a different brand.
Exactly! HN is a small subset of Apple customers. The largest piece of the pie don’t care about any of this stuff besides that it works.
I specifically bought Apple vs Android for these reasons. I run my life and business form my phone, I trust Apple to provide me with a working experience and support when needed.
Imagine having to use another App Store outside Apples control, and an app causes my phone to crash. Who will support me? I have to go digging to the app developer, or the App Store developer, or Apple?
Apple went this route to specifically remove the fragmentation of the PC market, and what you see similar in the Android market. The closed system provides better quality. That is why Apple is where it is today.
>Imagine having to use another App Store outside Apple...
Don't use one, install only Apple approved content from Apple approved stores but don't force everyone to do so. If you want to pay 15-30% more for stuff from the Apple Store then you are free to do so. On PC you can use only Steam, if say you want to buy Fallout 3 today and is 75% of on GOG you are not forced to buy it from GOG, you can buy it from Steam and give Valve their cut.
But you should have bought Android if you want freedom ... I think it does not make sense that a judge should decide if somebody is abusing their power should depend on the market share of Andoid and would include a condition like "When Android market share gets under X or when Google locks down Android then the current Apple good abuses become over night bad).
The problem with this logic is that every company is going to set up their own App Store. Microsoft, Epic, etc. Then for every app that I use right now on my iPhone I would have to source from several App Stores. It will make my experience very cumbersome.
I can prove you wrong, how many app stores are on 99% of Android users ? Are Apple,Amazon and Microsoft providing their own shitty Android store to avoid Google and there are no Apple,Amazon and MS apps on Google store?
No, all the websites I seen that offer mobile apps have 2 links, one for Apple and one for Google store . I never seen an app forcing a different store but I know Epic is trying to do that and offer some needed competition.
Why is this any different from Apple saying that you can't download other software on your Macbook, unless you pay Apple 30% and buy it from their exclusive store?
Well, we're not talking about the Macbook here... we're talking about the iPhone.
As far as the MacBook goes, it's a different target market. MacBooks are targeted for professionals that do all sorts of things with them.
Instead they are beefing up the iPad, which has the same target market as the iPhone. That target market doesn't care about all this crap and just wants their tech to work.
Some of the titles on the store allow peer to peer connection multiplayer which doesn’t have any drm checks. But most titles that use servers to simplify matchmaking or connection with other players have a check that validates that gog galaxy is logged into an account that has purchased the game.
EDIT: even googled it, found out Darkest Dungeon by default install a version that does need GoG Galaxy, but the DRM-free version is available on GoG site too, just need to choose that downloader instead. But that was it. Didn't found any other obvious complaints of GoG Galaxy being required.
Northgard requires Galaxy for single-player content. It's not subtle about it.
Your response says more about what you can tell with a quick google search than anything else.
I'm fascinated that I've been complaining about this here on HN for months, and the only response I ever get -- which comes up every time -- is "what are you talking about, that's not true". This isn't a matter of opinion. It's not even difficult to check. And yet, there are so many people whose worldview apparently rests on the opposite of the facts.
Looks like in the case of Northgard their conquest mode has some server side stuff happening in that mode which then requires the use of GOG Galaxy :-S
When checking Northgard, Galaxy seems to be required for "online content". So it at least seems right that Galaxy is not optional for some stuff.
However, I haven't found any evidence that Galaxy is required for single player. In fact, I found evidence to the contrary: the game has a Linux version, where Galaxy is not available.
Note that title: "Warning: GOG Galaxy is required to use conquest mode."
Conquest mode is a single-player mode. In fact, it's the only mode that allows you to use any of the Northgard DLC content. Without running Galaxy, all you can do is run through the story campaign.
What is your mental model of my commenting here? I posted a rant complaining about deluded people contradicting the basic facts every time I bring this up, and that's the comment you responded to in order to... demonstrate an example? Did you really think I was just making it all up?
Alright, so it is ONE mode, of ONE game that requires this... that was a (poor in my opinion) decision of the gamedev, nothing to do with GoG Galaxy itself.
It is similar to Diablo 3, SimCity 5 and Anno 2070 that have single-player features that are processed server-side, maybe like these ones it is a disguised DRM too.
So your original argument is still wrong.
Galaxy is not required to play "many newer games", it is required to play one, maybe a bit more games, where the dev made some questionable decision.
Also you asked about GoG being a platform for DRM-free games, even Northgard would still fit some definition of that: skirmish mode and campaign mode work even in the Steam version without the DRM. Seemly that particular game online shenanigans is purely to add DRM to the DLC, not the main game. (I still think that this is shady, but the original argument others were making still stands, Galaxy is not DRM, and you usually don't need it.)
Try reading my comment again. Galaxy is required for many newer games, serving as a total block on multiplayer. Some games are especially egregious in that they also use Galaxy to block single-player modes.
If you don't like their launchers, don't use their apps, it's simple as that. They're free to create a software in a way they feel appropriate. You're free to use or not to use that software.
If you don't like the App Store, don't use an iPhone, it's simple as that. They're free to manage their platform in a way they feel appropriate. You're free to use or not use that platform.
---
I'm not necessarily saying I think Apple is in the right, but your argument doesn't hold because it works equally well when applied at a higher level, which runs counter to your point.
>If you don't like the App Store, don't use an iPhone
This is not the main issue, its on the other end. If you are a developer, and you don't like the App Store, you have no options. You can't publish on an alt store because those are not allowed. So your only option is to not provide services to 50% of your customers and thats assuming the google play store doesn't have the same issue you are avoiding.
A real world example of this is vape companies provide an app which lets you do things like lock your vape so kids can't use it. Apple said those apps are not allowed on the app store. The vape company has no options, they just can't sell products to apple users now.
The problem is these tech companies hold way to much power. It would be like if 2 landlords owned literally every single block of land in the entire country. Now normally it would be fair for the landlord to pick which types of businesses to rent out to but when both options say your business isn't accepted and the only alternative is to build your own island in the ocean and create a civilisation on it so you can open your store then something is seriously wrong.
I couldn't agree more. It will only get worse if companies are allowed to create their own Appstores. Using these devices is already a difficult user experience we should be doing more to protect consumers who have already invested in the ecosystem. Apple is indirectly doing this.
> Quite frankly, the lockdown of the OS and rejection of this is one of the primary reasons I'm on iPhone.
_You_ are neither the vendor OR the citizen in the parent comment's metaphor, trying to build or be part of a civilization in the middle of the ocean.
Please do not try to justify a restriction because you happen to personally be happy with the current offering, the world is larger than you. There being more freedoms for others will not stop you from restricting yourself.
So you're happy as a consumer that developer's freedom is taken away from them, but you have more freedom. That's understandable, but you should realize that some developers value their freedom and will just avoid such a locked-down platform. There are plenty of apps missing in iPhone because of that.
There’s no need to have access to things I don’t want them to.
There is no need for them to ask for my payment information in a way that can be fraudulent.
There are many reasons for them why they’d want to reduce subscription cancellation and other dark patterns.
There is no reason for them to be able to install anything, or run arbitrary code on my device.
If epic wants to do business with me, they can go through my secretary/lawyer/firewall (Apple).
I’m more than 10x likely to spend money on apps, so I think that more than evens it out.
Which apps are missing? I’m so t see any added value in another AppStore. Heck, I’d love for Apple to lockdown OS X so that adobe’s store/updater is banned. Wishful thinking
That's not so simple with the hypocrite named Epic who preach about competition being better for all while buying exclusive distribution rights from devs/publishers on PC, sometimes even for games that had been long announced to be coming out on Steam and/or were crowdfunded on that and other premises.
Case in point: "Satisfactory". I was pretty excited about the game when it was first shown, then found later
* it would be removed from Steam,
* I'd have to get an account for another store,
* use a store made by some incompetents who couldn't implement basic functionality like a "shopping cart" even months after release (does it have one by now?)
* give part of my money through Epic to fucking Tencent and install a piece of Chinese spyware on my PC in order to run it. Also no implicit Linux support because no Proton and because Sweeney loves to bend over for Microsoft exclusively.
You could invest in the development via Kickstarter. Which boils down to making the project happen (due to lack of otherwise investors aka due to crowdfunding). Now, basically right after release, you can buy the game from Steam, too, but you pay full price for it (in contrast to the crowdfunders).
Contrast this to EGS. Stuff gets released on Steam many months later, say 6 months or a year, due to EGS getting the sack of money for being the sole distributor. Then, they release for full price on Steam. Why would I pay full price for a 6-12 month old game? I won't.
A recent example of Epic exclusives was Borderlands 3. It was highly anticipated, and then it came out that it would be exclusive to EGS for 6 months. I refuse to use EGS (for my own reasons), so when the hype died down after a few months and it arrived on Steam, I forgot to buy it. In fact, I still keep forgetting.
I get free games every month with Amazon Prime. I can only use this via the Twitch launcher (doesn't even work on Linux AFAIK).
Borderlands 3 I bought when it came out on Steam, I believe in start of Steam release it was on sale. Else I wouldn't have picked it up, simple as that. They release DLCs for the game, so that's nice, and keeps it a little bit alive I suppose.
Guild Wars 2 recently launched on Steam (like 8 years after release). I cannot merge my Guild Wars 2 account to Steam though, so its useless to me.
Humblebundle, in contrast to platforms like EGS, yields you serials you can apply to a launcher, usually Steam. That's convenient, but I suppose it isn't for people who don't want to use Steam.
Though I'm a heavy Steam user, so Steam being the defacto standard is fine with me.
I don't want another launcher, therefore I either use Steam or use Lutris to abstract all other launchers (and emulators and such).
When has a developer ever been forced into an exclusive deal? They get paid extra for that. It's pro-competitive, because it's what allows new stores to get off the ground, meanwhile nothing stops you from using Epic's store and Steam and five others at the same time. The biggest problem with Apple's store isn't what they allow into it, it's that people can't use it and any other store at the same time.
Yes, for a different reason.
Epics wanted a deal with oneplus for to have epic store preinstalled on their device, and google pressured oneplus to cancel the deal.
Although brought up in the lawsuit it is not a basis for any of the counts in the lawsuit. The counts in the lawsuit all go to the same conduct they are accusing Apple of.
Didn’t Epic initially go around the Play Store and require you to download an installer from their website? And then it turned out that it was a good malware vector? That’s what I fear will happen if we get alternate stores: lax security leading to malware.
That serves no purpose. If Google can’t veto any signature requests, it’s no different than having no signature at all; You’ll just have signed malware.
I see this argument everywhere and it makes no sense. The ToS is up to the owner of the platform. It's the same reason I don't use Facebook: I think the company and what they do with my data is diametrically opposed to my way of thinking so I voted to leave by deleting my account.
Developer's do have a choice: abide by the ToS and enjoy the trappings of a user base that tends to spend more on applications be they subscriptions or one-offs than Android or vote with your wallets and don't abide by it but to cry foul and try to usurp one's will on the company that built the platform makes no sense.
Some counter arguments:
If the ToS of the app store are likened to the tax laws in the USA then failing to abide the law that requires taxes to be paid is the same thing here as Epic using their own payments system to subvert the iOS tax of 30%.
The game is like a car that drives on a road. The car is Epic's Fortnite. The road is a toll road. The road was built by Apple. Many cars can drive on this road but must pay a fee. (The analogy isn't 1:1 but work with me a bit).
After years of investment in the iPhone and building the ecosystem around it the AppStore is just one way to monetize that. A 30% cut might sound high but they did spend tens(hundreds?) of billions in R&D and this is just one way, among many, that the iPhone is being monetized, this is just a return on investment on top of the sales price of the phone.
All of the arguments I have heard from those in the Epic camp strike me as temper tantrums thrown by children.
When there's only two companies fully controlling the next era of computing platforms, there's some argument that they have way too much power in their hand.
> The game is like a car that drives on a road. The car is Epic's Fortnite. The road is a toll road. The road was built by Apple. Many cars can drive on this road but must pay a fee. (The analogy isn't 1:1 but work with me a bit).
Except the phone isn't owned by Apple, and that's why every analogy similar to this one fails.
The simple solution to this is a law requiring that all general purpose computing devices (Lets define this as something that the user can install and run programs on) must provide a feature to run unauthenticated 3rd party software. Android, Windows and Linux already allow this and macOS used to.
IMO this should extend to game consoles too. You should be able to run homebrew games and tools on a console.
I agree with this completely. (And also don't think the current laws support Epic)
However, I am curious about what happens when you force xbox to run unauthenticated 3rd party software. The reason why consoles can be priced the way they are (very low, usually taking losses) is because the company makes it back on game sales.
So what happens? Microsoft is in a solid position with its "stream to system" upcoming hardware, but I think this will force console prices to go up.
As soon as you can run anything on a console, the creators of the console no longer have the same LTV per customer (gamers will buy from cheaper app stores). Additionally, you'll have new demand for consoles for eg deep learning applications on xbox (this increases the value of a console)
I think this is fundamentally bad for the console ecosystem, although I think Microsoft (and its console division) will be fine because of their investments in "x cloud"
I feel like this would be an easier sell for me if there didn't exist any competitor devices wherein you could run unauthenticated 3rd party software. As a consumer you have the option to purchase those devices instead or even consider reverse-engineering the locked-down product.
> IMO this should extend to game consoles too. You should be able to run homebrew games and tools on a console.
That argument there appeals to me emotionally a lot more though, I will admit! It's easy to admire Commodore 64 programmers before my time, or when I wrote Xbox 360 games using XNA in university.
That's exactly what I will do myself, in a few weeks I will receive my Pinephone and will port my existing personal finance app onto it.
But legal changes also need to come from above as well to ensure a fair computing market. I'm doing it more as a symbolic protest than any hope I will contribute towards that.
It is owned by Apple in that they own the OS. If I wanted full autonomy I’d root my phone. The whole appeal of the phone is the secure cohesive experience not the hodge-podge setup of the PC for example. It’s much more of a console in that sense.
> The whole appeal of the phone is the secure cohesive experience not the hodge-podge setup of the PC for example
I doubt non-tech people even know about the walled-garden or the anti-competitive practices of both companies, they just buy their device based on features, screen and camera and that's it. Just have a look at a mainstream phone review video on YouTube, only those points will be detailed.
To consumers it's clearly the next area of computing. Smartphones are even fully replacing computers in developing markets. To developers however, it's an unhealthy market owned by two uncountable companies where they could be banned from at any point very easily.
There's multiple angles where the current situation is an issue, there's the anti competitive nature of the market where an increasing chunk of the economy is based on but there's also the limited propriety rights of the owners of the phone.
I’m no iOS dev but I work in the tech field and am well into the ecosystem of Apple but also follow the company both in podcasts and online and am fully aware of the walled garden and it’s a feature for me it a bug.
Also, I get the sense that people are trying to impose OSS-isms on Apple when they both have no power to and also Apple has no reason to abide.
But non-developers have no idea about that, let's be honest. Just open-up a mainstream Youtube video about the latest iphone and check whenever they talk about the app review process (hint: never).
> Also, I get the sense that people are trying to impose OSS-isms on Apple when they both have no power to and also Apple has no reason to abide.
That's why we need anti-trust investigations to both Google and Apple, having a good chunk of the modern economy relying on just two companies which don't even appear to have any competition pressure is just unacceptable.
Sounds like tyranny to me. All of this imposition to force the market leaders to change instead of championing other champions. Nobody was giving mind to Apple when Rim and Nokia and Sony were the big players. Apple just made a better device that the market liked more. There will be a new better thing to come along it just needs to be invented.
There are network effects with software platforms that give the established players an advantage. Modern smartphones are more like PCs than feature phones where people generally don't care much about the third party software ecosystem.
If Microsoft had as much power over software distribution in the nineties as Apple does now, they would probably have (smartly for them) severely limited or eliminated web browsers, and forced developers to write their internet applications as Microsoft-specific native software instead (or some other proprietary technology). We take the cross-platform internet for granted now but earlier it was not a sure thing.
If many of (what are now) web services only worked on the Microsoft ecosystem, this would have not only deeply entrenched their position in the PC market but also given them a huge advantage in mobile (if Apple even survived long enough to compete there). One of the early iPhone's biggest strengths was having a full web browser (especially since there was no app store initially). If the real draw was MicrosoftNetwork and not the open web, this wouldn't have been a big selling point for the iPhone and it would have been much harder for them to get the ball rolling. Microsoft would have had an enormous amount of time to come out with a phone that can access the MicrosoftNetwork that everyone wants.
And this is all assuming that anti-trust is still enforced enough that Microsoft can't just demand exclusivity from everyone else, or that companies aren't afraid to associate with competitors since they live or die by subjective Microsoft processes.
It's not really a throwaway, I've been using the account for a while and commenting semi-regularly. I've periodically wondered if I should email the moderators to try to change it to something less misleading...
Despite not being Tim Sweeney I think as a developer and a consumer I would prefer having the option to install alternative app stores. I'd like to be able to buy apps in a way that lets me install them across platforms, and don't like solely depending on Apple for curation when they ban apps like streaming / emulators etc that don't seem to be a real security concern.
I don't care about mobile as much as laptops and future platforms like VR/AR, but it seems like the trend in general is for things to be more locked down with a few companies acting as gatekeepers. Strong sandboxing with permissions seems great but I don't see why that has to be coupled with everything needing to go through one company for approval.
A better analogy is the game is like a ride at a theme park. The theme park was built by Apple. Many companies can make games/rides for the theme park but must pay a share of revenue from each customer going on rides. You can go on a ride at the theme park but you pay an entrance fee for the theme park and you pay to go on the rides.
But what if there are only 2 theme parks in the world and ride makers have no option but to comply with whatever rules these 2 theme parks come up with?
In this world, yes. There are only two that have risen to the top because the market (you and me and everyone else) voted with our wallets to create them.
That's the same issue with this analogy, unlike the theme park, the phone owner isn't Apple, there is no way around it.
Additionally, maybe we should have higher standards for technology which a good chunk of the world economy is relying on rather than applying some entertainment standards.
You absolutely cannot live without Whatsapp/wechat in certain countries, you have no option. It's the same for developers, there's no way you can thrive without catering to iOS.
And you examples for taxes and roads are socialist services. The rates on tolls and taxes are decided by people elected representatives. Apple decided the rates on their own, not by Government mandate.
We all sometimes buy products that are of partial value for us, but that doesn't break the logic for those who value an entire product. Problems arise only when we try to sit on two different chairs at the same time.
Right now I am experimenting with an android phone, and its hardware is not bad (very good) for its 0.3x price of an actual iphone with similar specs. It also allows all that "control over the device" that everyone wants here. But after an iphone I don't really feel that I'm finally free. It is a constant fight for privacy, for being adfree, for apps that do not abuse permissions and/or "cloudness", etc. I wait for a new iphone because I got nothing out of promises of a freedom that android users around told me with an excitement. It is basically the same brick, but with a jerky scroll and an ability to install ads and low-functional spyware after hours of searching and comparison.
I don’t know if what you’re saying holds generally. I don’t know if people buy it for the AppStore, but I strongly suspect that most people don’t buy it despite the App Store.
The 30% cut was literally announced on stage by Steve Jobs when they introduced the App Store in 2008, and again when in-app purchases were introduced in (I think) 2009. It's been in public coverage for years. They talk about it regularly; remember, Apple's position has been to say, loudly and repeatedly, that this is just a terrific deal for everybody. The fees are not secret.
Also, remember that in practice, the vast majority of people downloading applications on Android are doing so through Google Play, which charges the same 30% fee for both apps and in-app purchases. If people resent Apple more than Google in this context, it's probably more to do with the companies' respective public images than concrete reality.
I suspect you're remembering recent news about Apple preventing Facebook from putting a notice in the Facebook iOS app about Apple taking 30% of the cut from event tickets purchased through the app. While that was arguably a bad move on Apple's part from a PR standpoint -- lately they've been seriously violating the First Rule of Holes[1] -- there's little indication it's a change in policy.
I don't understand your point. You seem to know that Apple denied an application that was merely stating the "widely known" fact that Apple takes 30% cut; yet you brush that off as irrelevant and "little indication that it's a change in policy"... what policy? The policy of NOT letting users know that Apple takes a cut?
Not really, US local sales taxes are added after sale to the advertised price and can change from one side of a street to the other. App store fees are included in the price and the same everywhere.
Definitely there are more lemons on Apple’s App Store these days, but it’s still the case that fragmentation in the kingdom of the fruits is so much lower that producing a decent app is just easier than on the Google stack.
Me too more or less, I’ve got an iPhone because it mostly just works and I can expect to get 5 years of life out of it, which makes it more affordable than most android phones, flagship or not. (My last Android was a nexus 5x.)
I actually like it the way it is now. You don't hear our arguments, you only want to be represented in that court without us. But conscious apple users are not all pro-sideload.
if the App Store is such a tremendous value, why don‘t you ask users to pay for access to that App Store directly
Because the value is not in the appstore itself, but in an inability to push uncontrolled spy/trick/crap-ware through side channels, so that thieves and con artists have no way to trick or force a user out of safety.
This is quoted often, but doesn't take any subject or reality detail into account. It is simply not true. I'll show you why.
Goals and outcomes have to be realistic, not idealistic. All parties considered, and given how app/media world works, there are two major models that are represented by two big players (google, apple). First one is to build a garden that, barring little fuckups, mostly works in favor of a money-spending user and has no economics in selling them out. Another is a "free as in cheese" model where everything costs less, and is less- or un- controlled, so that various third-party economics who are another giant's infotrade puppets play their game at relaxed rules or at will. This includes phone vendors, other stores and software packages from the internet. There is a third model, a PC, that has a rich history not worth exposing again to an innocent user. And fourth, ubuntu, which had essentially zero economics.
For the context, I own both android and ios devices (and mac, and pc). And android's agenda of being free and doing everything you want simply isn't real. There is basically no possibilities ("freedoms") without some sticky strings attached. I could bring a metaphor of being an android user, but it hardly fits hn format. Let's say that an android user has to make bodily compromises along the way of searching for "freedom", but never finding it. Because no one in the world needs you to be free and happy for free, and your market data costs more than you. They will either sell you a big margin, or monetize it by digging in your laundry.
So basically, there is no choice at all, from the perspective of goals you (and I, ideally) chase. The world and its needs simply do not work like that. I'm not exchanging freedom for safety, I'm exchanging money for privacy, and "free as in freedom" is not an option at all.
And I wouldn't even mind if such ideal world existed, where everyone just writes an app that does great things, then sells/gifts it on an open mobile store and everyone to be happy. But by giving up on a walled garden IRL, I give up on a walled garden and freedom and privacy and hygiene. I'd better not own my device rather than not owning my privacy or checking constantly where my info leaks.
Ironically the person this quote is attributed to spent the majority of his life owning other human beings. I'm not sure we should put much weight into his opinion of "essential liberty".
>I think if the App Store is such a tremendous value, why don‘t you ask users to pay for access to that App Store directly. Let‘s see how valuable everybody thinks the App Store is when they actually have to pay an access fee directly to Apple.
Right. If the problem is that people are insufficiently appreciative of having access 'for free' and should therefore leave complaints unstated and unaddressed, Apple can fix that by imposing a fee, so they can no longer use "for free" as something to hold against app-store users to short-circuit complaints.
I’m partial to Apple in this case, but one of the arguments against Apple is that those higher costs harm consumers by making them pay more than they can somewhere else.
260 million earned by Apple by charging the 30% commission on 116 million users means Apple received US$2.24 per user and then has to deduct all costs of running the App Store before a profit remains. And this is just for Fortnite, a profitable game.
All of the games and apps that are either not profitable or are free also need to be paid from the money earned on whales like Fortnite.
They now want Apple to serve 116 millions of users updates that usually run into the hundreds of megabytes for games without paying more than US$100 a year.
Epic runs it's own game store on 12% commission, but most of those games are paid and games are the biggest earners in any App Store, so only the most profitable category.
But Apple’s costs are tiny compared to their margins, this isn’t logical as Apple can’t lose money on anything in the App Store, they didn’t invest in making the games did they? They are rent seeking to juice up their profits, it’s a great scam but I’d rather they concentrate on selling more hardware than ripping off developers.
If Epic itself cannot do it for less than 12% selling only the best earning category and serving barely any free games when they're trying to _prove_ that it can be done for less than 30% apparently running an App Store isn't as trivial as most people at HN make it appear to be.
Also the 30% "rent seeking" happens on any platform Epic is on except the PC and Mac. They tried to go around the Google Play Store and pivoted on that decision.
I would like to see the % go down, I think they can run it for 20% without much trouble but when the kickback on titles goes down the price of the hardware goes up. So you can have a "cheap" Playstation with expensive games or an expensive Playstation with cheaper games.
What makes you think this? How do you know they cannot do an App Store for less than 12%? Also there is such a thing as economies of scale - the app store probably sells many times more things than the Epic version.
You seem to mistakenly think the cost of selling X items on an App Store has a cost that is "cost of app store per thing" * "number of things sold". This isn't true, the cost of the App Store is fixed and has almost NOTHING to do with number of things sold.
I just think using your market dominance to squeeze developers who provide services for your users is kind of sick. Apple should be providing the App Store for free and thanking developers for selling so many phones, not ripping people off.
45 euro means they cash roughly 5.40 on the sale of this item at 12%. The item is a game comparable in size so has comparable hosting fees as Fortnite in the iOS App Store. Yet charge more than twice as much to host it, not changing the fee even if they have more than 117 million people that buy it.
So what's really fair to you?
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Can't reply anymore, so I'll update here instead:
It's fairly simple. Fortnite and Tony Hawk are comparable AAA game titles, with the same amount of updates, same download size, etcetera. Yet Epic manages to milk the double out of each sale of Tony Hawk because of it's retail price. But retail price has _nothing_ to do with the cost Epic has to distribute Tony Hawk (as you argumented so well).
Epic pays a bit more than 2 bucks to Apple to host their AAA title, but couldn't turn a profit on it's own store if it had to distribute Tony Hawk for the same amount of money.
I am tempted to give up but let's maybe explain one more time:
1) The value that Epic have decided to charge for an App Store has nothing to do with the costs of running an App Store.
2) I said no such thing about a fixed fee - I said your mental model for understand the costs of selling something on an App Store is mistaken. Once the store exists your costs are largely fixed, I don't need to explain it to Epic - they do not represent my views and they can charge what they want on their app store.
3) Why do you think hosting costs loads of money - it's virtually free at the scale of Epic or Apple? It has nothing to do with the charges and each sale.
4) I explained what I think is fair for Apple - be grateful for the huge developer community and stop trying to charge people for content built outside of each app (i.e. you can't buy books on the amazon app or audible due to this stupid profiteering). You can't even purchase Netflix from the Netflix app due to Apple wanting a cut.
Anyway, I think I've tried to explain why you're not correct about the maths on the value/costs App Stores create for Apple and running them like a protection racket due to market dominance is ethically wrong.
The whole argument about them promoting an app „for free“ is a bit ridiculous. They clearly knew the amount of commission they were going to earn from pushing that app through their App Store - so please admit that you clearly didn‘t do this out of the good of your hearts.
The same goes for the portrayal of „look how much money they made through us“ - yes - and look at how much money they made you along the way. I mean if Epic made 600 million, than you made about 260 million - from the very same people that paid you for the hardware.
I think if the App Store is such a tremendous value, why don‘t you ask users to pay for access to that App Store directly. Let‘s see how valuable everybody thinks the App Store is when they actually have to pay an access fee directly to Apple.