Press F for Fortnite - Apple AND GOOGLE remove Fortnite from the App Store - Epic Sues Apple

[Spindel]

19 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

And if you have an oligopoly, you should be broken up by antitrust agencies and sued into oblivion.

You also agreed to this kind of legislation if you operate on a country that has such legislation.

True. Let a court judge if this is the case from the perspective of the law. 
 

But don’t come here and cry when Epic get kicked out from Appstore (and playstore) and lose access to their development accounts for breaking the rules THEY agreed to follow. 
 

 

[Kisai]

57 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

And if you have an oligopoly, you should be broken up by antitrust agencies and sued into oblivion.

You also agreed to this kind of legislation if you operate on a country that has such legislation.

And just how would you propose to do this without destroying the company? Apple has said, and this is primarily why you can not get iOS or MacOS for "clone" devices, is that the hardware and software is implicitly one unit.

 

It's not the same as Microsoft's bundling of MSIE, where it could be clearly demonstrated that "part of the OS" was not really true beyond some eyecandy. The fact that Microsoft has replaced MSIE with Edge, and then with Edge Chromium also shows you how little of that is true today. Developers went knees deep into VBscript and ActiveX and both of those are no longer supported.

 

There is no way you can break up Apple over this, not without breaking up google, Valve, Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft to all divest their app store businesses, and make them available on all devices. The end result of this I gaurantee you is that Sony and Nintendo stop selling digital downloads to the US, and Apple's divested app store acquires google and Microsoft's Xbox divested's app store , and then we're left with only exApple and Valve as game stores, with consoles having no means of purchasing anything except by downloading from foreign run app stores by purchasing foreign model devices.

 

A sure fire way to destroy a business is by sending them into the arms of a more business-friendly country and losing regulatory leverage over them. Canada is just over the border, and nothing stops American businesses from merging with a company in Canada and the Canadian company being the new "HQ" for tax purposes.

 

[Kisai]

7 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Force them to support app sideloading, just like every other platform does. Nintendo is the only exception, that should be the next to do that.

Requiring Apple signature to run applications is the way they enforce their monopoly.

 

I'm sure enterprises will just love their end users side-loading things onto their company phones. No thank you.

 

I'll split the difference here. Apple can permit side-loading if Apple gets to know what you're sideloading and can block it (eg malware, piracy software) on security grounds. If you're sideloading a cracked game, denied.

[mr moose]

If the company wants to enforce a policy on their fleet of phones then that is both reasonable and possible.  Trying to argue that they won't be able to do that to justify demanding that no one can do it is not a rational argument. 

[Kisai]

33 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

Apple don't get to choose what you're sideloading. If they do, it's not sideloading.

Company phones should be managed by the company, so it certainly make sense to block sideloading and the official store.

Then there's nothing preventing the phone from becoming a zombie in a botnet. 

 

Either tell me (apple) why you need to sideload this thing, or the answer is no. If you're a developer, go get a developer key. If you're compiling something you want to compile yourself on the internet without using Xcode, then you should have no problem telling me what it is.

 

Here's how I envision that working:

 

You point the phone at an IPA file, the phone downloads the IPA and then connects to the app store to see if there's a matching "authorized version" licensed to the phone, and if it matches the App store (eg free/paid, hash value of the package executable binary) it downloads the App store version, and that's all that needs to be done. 

 

If on the other hand you compiled something without Xcode and want to run it on your device you need to tell Apple what it is. So instead of getting a blanket "no", you will get the option to 

a) Upload this to Apple for security checks, Apple will then send a OK if it passes to install this app

b) Do not upload this to Apple, Apple will take a fingerprint of the app and compare it against known threats and send an OK if it passes.

 

If nobody has uploaded it, then someone at Apple has to check it. 

 

The PC and Mac never historically had such a system in place, which is why sideloading is an option at all. People may install software from CD-ROM's onto current generations of computer hardware because they need that specific version. Such is not the case with mobile devices, and arguing that iOS should be as open as a PC is the same bad faith argument people have for jailbreaking in the first place. Few people legitimately have a reason to JB a device, and it's used almost exclusively for piracy.

 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Kisai said:

Then there's nothing preventing the phone from becoming a zombie in a botnet. 

There are two reasons this is irrlelevant.

 

1. not being able to sideload does not mean it won't become part of a botnet.  Side loading is not the only vector malware uses.

2. Every other personal computational device on the planet can be sideloaded.  So long as people support their device and people keep them updated the risks are not high enough to justify anti trust behavior. 

 

 

Imagine using that argument to support letting MS make every version of windows winS.   You can't install software from anywhere but the store to avoid malware and botnets.   I'm sorry but for fleets and schools it makes sense so let them have it, but for consumers it is anti consumer, anti trust, and basically a BS move.

 

 

[mr moose]

8 minutes ago, Kisai said:

 

Either tell me (apple) why you need to sideload this thing, or the answer is no.

Oh mighty lord apple, controller of everything, I want your blessing to use my phone the way I want.  

 

FFS,  why should anyone need to plead with apple for permission to sideload on their own phone?   

 

[Kisai]

6 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Oh mighty lord apple, controller of everything, I want your blessing to use my phone the way I want.  

 

FFS,  why should anyone need to plead with apple for permission to sideload on their own phone?   

 

Piracy. Or do you love DRM? Because what you're asking for is every application to go back to using battery-wasting DRM strategies.

[Blademaster91]

17 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Either tell me (apple) why you need to sideload this thing, or the answer is no.

I paid for and own the device, so i'll gladly take the risk on sideloading and installing stuff from outside the store.

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Piracy. Or do you love DRM? Because what you're asking for is every application to go back to using battery-wasting DRM strategies.

Piracy has nothing to do with this.  It's my personal computational device, I don't need to beg apple to be able to put programs on it.

 

As I pointed out, I can sideload on android, windows, linux, hell you can even do it on mac. 

 

 

[Kisai]

27 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Piracy has nothing to do with this.  It's my personal computational device, I don't need to beg apple to be able to put programs on it.

 

As I pointed out, I can sideload on android, windows, linux, hell you can even do it on mac. 

 

 

And sideloaded apps on all of those platforms always compromise the online services they are attached to, what's your point. People download android apps, strip the google play from it, hack it to give themselves a billion moneybucks and then play it and send 999999999999 point scores to the servers. 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Kisai said:

what's your point.

My point is there is no reasonable argument to deny consumers the right to use their phones their way,  and more so there is no reasonable argument to deny developers access to half the market unless they abide apples rules.  That is the very definition of antitrust. 

 

 

[Kisai]

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

My point is there is no reasonable argument to deny consumers the right to use their phones their way,  and more so there is no reasonable argument to deny developers access to half the market unless they abide apples rules.  That is the very definition of antitrust. 

 

 

Make up your mind then, you can not have both "I want MY device to be open" and "I want Apple to let me do whatever I want on THEIR store." If you sideload your device, then you don't get to use Apple's store.

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Make up your mind then, you can not have both "I want MY device to be open" and "I want Apple to let me do whatever I want on THEIR store." If you sideload your device, then you don't get to use Apple's store.

Can have both,  It's apple that is taking away the choice. 

 

This is at the very crux of the issue here,  Apple are taking away the choice,  there is no other option. 

[HenrySalayne]

8 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

Nice of you to omit the important bit of the post

It's not a bug, it's a feature. I'm sorry I didn't meet your expectations and stoop to your level of childish behaviour. If you have nothing more to add to the discussion, you should just stop posting. Trying to tease someone with an insult leads to nothing.

 

6 hours ago, Kisai said:

Piracy. Or do you love DRM? Because what you're asking for is every application to go back to using battery-wasting DRM strategies.

Apples is advertising their security processors on each and every keynote. I don't think it will be too hard to implement a DRM for all App Store apps and save the authentification key in a secure area. After all, sideloading doesn't mean Apple loses control over their OS or their hardware. It's not a Jailbreak. There is no low level access to the phone.

 

6 hours ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

If I already bought a device, it is mine and you (Apple) don't get to choose things for me.

If they want that power, "give me"(lease would be more appropriate) the phone for free and only get money from services/store.

No. It doesn't need to be free of cost and I do understand Apple is trying to earn additional money off their products. That's fine. But they are forcing certain things onto the developers and customers I don't agree with.

 

5 hours ago, Kisai said:

And sideloaded apps on all of those platforms always compromise the online services they are attached to, what's your point. People download android apps, strip the google play from it, hack it to give themselves a billion moneybucks and then play it and send 999999999999 point scores to the servers. 

To quote myself: "sideloading doesn't mean Apple loses control over their OS or their hardware. It's not a Jailbreak. There is no low level access to the phone."

Cheating is as old as digital games. If I'm able to reverse engineer the game to this point, it probably doesn't matter if I'm using an iPhone with sideloading or not.

And this might happen once in a while, but you probably overexaggerate how sideloading is the sole reason for this.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, HenrySalayne said:

 

 

To quote myself: "sideloading doesn't mean Apple loses control over their OS or their hardware. It's not a Jailbreak. There is no low level access to the phone."

Cheating is as old as digital games. If I'm able to reverse engineer the game to this point, it probably doesn't matter if I'm using an iPhone with sideloading or not.

And this might happen once in a while, but you probably overexaggerate how sideloading is the sole reason for this.

Do google "(any android or xbox game)" + "cheat" or "(any game) + achievement hack" and you will certainly find it. One of the reasons why some games end up on certain consoles or devices and not others is how secure the device is from piracy or virtualization-based hacking. MMORPG's tend to be on the PC and most of them have invasive DRM/Anti-hacking programs that come with it. It's a cat-and-mouse game. Meanwhile Xbox 360 games were all ruined and "Xbox Live Gold" was made worthless by the same hackers. Why pay for a service that adds no value to the product, and any skiddie can hack to ruin everyone's time. It's not exclusive to PC games being ruined.

 

So when you get "crossplay" type of features like in Minecraft of Fortnite, and there's a some kind of premium feature/currency in play, what do you think happens? The weakest platform wrecks all most secure ones. This is why cross-play is not a standard feature, especially not between PC/Xbox and everything else, since the PC is swiss cheese for hacks, and Microsoft's platforms have been kind of a joke since inception for this.

 

It just happens to be that the status quo is that PC's are the best gaming experience for MMORPG's and FPS titles, and playing them on consoles is an exercise in utter frustration. 

 

But lets drag this back on topic because I think people have become fixated on unimportant details again.

 

Epic's complaint that 30% is too much, when really it's actually a good compromise that's been there since iTunes music. Which also takes 30%, but if you drill down on to how much the artist gets', it's like, 7 cents on the dollar, the remaining 63 cents taken by their recording company. Now put that in perspective with game publishers and developers. How many pennies are the publishers actually giving to their developers? Epic is not doing this in good faith, make no mistake about it. 30% is something decided by Apple because it's fair and fair accross multiple types of content.

 

Apple's iBooks got completely derailed by government overreach, so Amazon is the one controlling that digital market, and guess what they charge? Twice as much in anything between $3 and $10, and more for international AND you pay for every byte on Amazon, so you are pretty much guaranteed to get the worst version of ebooks on Amazon.

 

https://selfpublishingadvice.org/alli-watchdog-amazon-vs-apple/

 

For Music streaming there are at least 14 alternatives. I've opted not to use Apple Music and use Spotify for just listening to stuff in the background and most of these services were either not available in Canada or didn't work soon after I tried them (again on the iPad on the train, across the US.) For digital music sales there's apparently 140?

 

Where this Epic lawsuit comes down to is how there's no alternative, yet the complaint about the commission rate is baseless. Unless Epic wants to share what Nintendo, Playstation and Microsoft charge, Epic really can't say Apple is charging too much unless their intent was to undermine them by making an alternative to the iOS app store.

https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/06/18/sony-microsoft-game-console-big-loss-leader.aspx

Quote

Sony and Microsoft don't mind selling their consoles at a loss since they recoup the costs through software and subscription sales. For every $60 game sold, Microsoft and Sony retain about $7 in platform royalties. They also retain about $27 in publishing fees for first-party games.

 

Hmm let's see, $7 on a $60 title is about 11.7%, or close to Epic's 12%. No idea what Nintendo's would be.

 

https://cdn2.unrealengine.com/apple-complaint-734589783.pdf

 

No mention of other stores rates.

[HenrySalayne]

Spoiler

33 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Do google "(any android or xbox game)" + "cheat" or "(any game) + achievement hack" and you will certainly find it. One of the reasons why some games end up on certain consoles or devices and not others is how secure the device is from piracy or virtualization-based hacking. MMORPG's tend to be on the PC and most of them have invasive DRM/Anti-hacking programs that come with it. It's a cat-and-mouse game. Meanwhile Xbox 360 games were all ruined and "Xbox Live Gold" was made worthless by the same hackers. Why pay for a service that adds no value to the product, and any skiddie can hack to ruin everyone's time. It's not exclusive to PC games being ruined.

 

So when you get "crossplay" type of features like in Minecraft of Fortnite, and there's a some kind of premium feature/currency in play, what do you think happens? The weakest platform wrecks all most secure ones. This is why cross-play is not a standard feature, especially not between PC/Xbox and everything else, since the PC is swiss cheese for hacks, and Microsoft's platforms have been kind of a joke since inception for this.

 

It just happens to be that the status quo is that PC's are the best gaming experience for MMORPG's and FPS titles, and playing them on consoles is an exercise in utter frustration. 

 

But lets drag this back on topic because I think people have become fixated on unimportant details again.

I undertand your point and agree people have become fixated on insignificant details.
But I still want to add two things:
- apps on iOS are running in a sandbox and shouldn't have access to other apps to manipulate data

- there are methods to make reverse engineering software and changing how it works very hard to almost impossible; developers need to implement a protection against the manipulation

 

55 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Epic is not doing this in good faith, make no mistake

What is "good faith"? They are doing it for their own benefit and nobody would deny that. But fighting something for your own advantage, doesn't mean others can't benefit from the implications. That's what I'm hoping for.

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

Epic's complaint that 30% is too much, when really it's actually a good compromise that's been there since iTunes music. Which also takes 30%, but if you drill down on to how much the artist gets', it's like, 7 cents on the dollar, the remaining 63 cents taken by their recording company.

I don't get your point here. There might be worse inequalities, but this doesn't mean Apple taking a flat 30% is better. Despite this being really far off topic, there are platforms to support artists directly, like Bandcamp. I'm wondering if purchases through the bandcamp app also have to give Apple a 30% cut. This would change your point to the opposite.

1 hour ago, Kisai said:

I've opted not to use Apple Music and use Spotify for just listening to stuff in the background

Which is absolutely fine. Apple Music and Spotify should be alternatives to each other. But just taking 30% off a Spotify subscription for the first year and 15% for the rest of the time just because it was purchased through an Apple device doesn't seem fair to me.

[maartendc]

11 hours ago, mr moose said:

Oh mighty lord apple, controller of everything, I want your blessing to use my phone the way I want.  

 

FFS,  why should anyone need to plead with apple for permission to sideload on their own phone?   

 

Maybe you agreed to that control in the terms of service. You probably did, and never read them. And that is maybe the problem.

 

The fact that there even ARE terms of service to own these devices, means that nefarious crap is going on behind the scenes. Why do you need 500 pages of terms and conditions drawn up by lawyers if nothing shady is going on?

 

Let me put it this way: did you ever have to sign terms of service to go buy a hammer at a hardware store?

No. Once you buy the tool, its yours. Use it as you please, at your own risk.

 

The fact that all things you buy now come with 'terms of service' means that some bullcrap is going on that is screwing you over.

 

 

[Lord Vile]

3 hours ago, HenrySalayne said:

  Reveal hidden contents

I undertand your point and agree people have become fixated on insignificant details.
But I still want to add two things:
- apps on iOS are running in a sandbox and shouldn't have access to other apps to manipulate data

- there are methods to make reverse engineering software and changing how it works very hard to almost impossible; developers need to implement a protection against the manipulation

 

What is "good faith"? They are doing it for their own benefit and nobody would deny that. But fighting something for your own advantage, doesn't mean others can't benefit from the implications. That's what I'm hoping for.

Good faith would be doing it because they're something actually shady going on not trying to find a loophole so you can rip more people off. It's bordering on frivolous. 

Quote

I don't get your point here. There might be worse inequalities, but this doesn't mean Apple taking a flat 30% is better. Despite this being really far off topic, there are platforms to support artists directly, like Bandcamp. I'm wondering if purchases through the bandcamp app also have to give Apple a 30% cut. This would change your point to the opposite.

I don't see your issue with the 30%, it's not outlandish, it's about industry standard and far better than places like Twitch or YouTube which take 50 and 45%. 

Quote

Which is absolutely fine. Apple Music and Spotify should be alternatives to each other. But just taking 30% off a Spotify subscription for the first year and 15% for the rest of the time just because it was purchased through an Apple device doesn't seem fair to me.

If you're using Spotify solely on your Phone then why isn't it fair? Spotify wouldn't have the custom otherwise. Personally I use Apple Music because it's just better than Spotify anyway. 

[mr moose]

11 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

 

I don't see your issue with the 30%, it's not outlandish, it's about industry standard and far better than places like Twitch or YouTube which take 50 and 45%. 

 

I don't see why you can't grasp that when people are talking about the 30% they are only talking about it applying to transactions for content that apple have not created, hosted, sold, is unavoidable (no other market) and is post sale of the device/app.  

 

You can only compare that 30% to youtube if youtube are preventing that creator from using another service like patreon (financial payment system outside of youtube), twitch (allows financial payments outside of twitch) or vimeo (not sure but seeing as you can post petreon content their it is also flexible).    So no, when apple don't permit you to use external payment systems and the others do you cannot compare them.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lord Vile]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

I don't see why you can't grasp that when people are talking about the 30% they are only talking about it applying to transactions for content that apple have not created, hosted, sold, is unavoidable (no other market) and is post sale of the device/app.  

 

You can only compare that 30% to youtube if youtube are preventing that creator from using another service like patreon (financial payment system outside of youtube), twitch (allows financial payments outside of twitch) or vimeo (not sure but seeing as you can post petreon content their it is also flexible).    So no, when apple don't permit you to use external payment systems and the others do you cannot compare them.

 

 

 

 

 

Play store does it too? They’re allowing you access to their platform which costs money to run. Unless you think servers run on hopes and dreams. And with most of the apps running off ads which Apple doesn’t take a few from and are free to download they make money off of literally nothing else on the App Store. 
 

You could apply Patreon to devs on the App Store too... nothing’s stopping a decent going to patreon and giving out free in game items to people who donate. BTW they also take a cut of 5% plus VAT plus another 5% + $0.1 on every transaction.  for Also nothing is stopping devs putting software on other platforms which would be both of your points countered. 
 

^ says I can. 

[mr moose]

5 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

Play store does it too? 
 

Oh well that makes it alright then .  As I said, compare like for like, not like against something different.

 

Quote

You could apply Patreon to devs on the App Store too... nothing’s stopping a decent going to patreon and giving out free in game items to people who donate. BTW they also take a cut of 5% plus VAT plus another 5% + $0.1 on every transaction.  for Also nothing is stopping devs putting software on other platforms which would be both of your points countered. 
 

^ says I can. 

So patreon only take 5% while apple take 30% and you think this is an argument validating it being a standard cut? EDIT: not to mention patreon is optional, unlike the apple tax for in-apps...

 

I'd like to see any ios app adopt a patreon like system that apple wouldn't shut down.

[Lord Vile]

Just now, mr moose said:

Oh well that makes it alright then .  As I said, compare like for like, not like against something different.

Sony’s store is 30%. Steam is around the same. 30% is about the going rate. 

Just now, mr moose said:

 

So patreon only take 5% while apple take 30% and you think this is an argument validating it being a standard cut?

Well patreon actually do nothing except act as a transfer between PayPal and the user base. They might run a couple of server. They’re also charging 5% at both ends, VAT on one and adding $0.1 a transaction onto the charge so it works out a fair bit higher than 5%
 

Just now, mr moose said:

 

I'd like to see any ios app adopt a patreon like system that apple wouldn't shut down.

It’s not against TOS to have a patreon afaik

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Sony’s store is 30%. Steam is around the same. 30% is about the going rate. 

Well patreon actually do nothing except act as a transfer between PayPal and the user base. They might run a couple of server. They’re also charging 5% at both ends, VAT on one and adding $0.1 a transaction onto the charge so it works out a fair bit higher than 5%
 

It’s not against TOS to have a patreon afaik

You are still missing the point (intentionally I might add), you tried to compare the in-app 30% charge to youtube.  The difference is you can't avoid the 30% charge from apple but you can use 3rd party transaction service in youtube.  (also it costs nothing to use youtube and sell your wares from your own store, or use an third party store like bandcamp or bigcartell etc.)

 

In app transactions are nothing more than a transaction, why are you still pretending they warrant 30% when the industry standard for a transaction fee is on average 2%?

 

You are being very dishonest with your arguments. comparing things that aren't comparable and ignoring very important conditions.

 

I have said multiple times in this thread (and the other two threads), any service that does NOT offer an alternative method of payment and charges higher than normal fees for a simple transaction is bad.  So far instead of rebutting this fact you have just continued to say the same thing over and over. 

 

 

 

[Kisai]

50 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Sony’s store is 30%. Steam is around the same. 30% is about the going rate. 

Well patreon actually do nothing except act as a transfer between PayPal and the user base. They might run a couple of server. They’re also charging 5% at both ends, VAT on one and adding $0.1 a transaction onto the charge so it works out a fair bit higher than 5%
 

It’s not against TOS to have a patreon afaik

The argument you are looking for is "Patreon is not a store, it's a subscription"