Microsoft joins Epic on the fight against Apple

[straight_stewie]

14 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I think it would be pretty hard to hold apple or google accountable for software a person chooses to download themselves.  MS can't be held responsible unless they actually play a role in permitting it to happen (failing to update a known exploit or something like that).  So I can't see how it would apply to anyone else.

 

Microsoft never made the promise that the applications available to it where non-malicious.

Google and Apple, however, do make the promise that they vet the apps on their distribution platforms.

[mr moose]

Just now, Kisai said:

Because you're just changing the goal posts. Either Apple has a monopoly (which it doesn't) globally. Or it doesn't. For as much as the Legal jurisdiction cares though, it only cares about the jurisdiction that the lawsuit is in. So that would probably be California if anything. (Legal doc says "Northern California"), it would have to be escalated up to some kind of federal court to really care about the US as a whole, so Epic is really being a precocious idiot as far as they've done things so far.

 

The case is in the US that is were the goal posts reside.  no one moved them.

 

Pointing out that claiming apple only have 25% of market as being dishonest is also not moving goal posts. It is highlighting the problem with using that figure. The issue is about market power (not that anyone is bothering to learn about it), android have no market power when the market isn't buying anything. 

 

ERGO using androids dominance in markets that are A. not in the jurisdiction of the case and B. not even in a condition you can define as being a market power is dishonest.

 

 

[mr moose]

2 minutes ago, straight_stewie said:

Microsoft never made the promise that the applications available to it where non-malicious.

Google and Apple, however, do make the promise that they vet the apps on their distribution platforms.

All they have to do is stop promising that.

 

Which they shouldn't have been doing in the first place anyway.

 

[williamcll]

Doesn't matter to me since I don't use Apple LMAO.

 

That said, I'm not sure who would win the court since.

[Lord Vile]

6 hours ago, TheTechWizardThatNeedsHelp said:

Apple has over 50% market share in the us if I remember correctly.

They have 40% of sales in the US but the US =/= the world

[Kabraxis]

Suit-wise, I want Epic to win, because I'm in favor of a more open iOS ecosystem, and the hope of being able to side-load on Apple would be a win for everyone but Apple.

 

In terms of the companies in this knock-out rumble, I will not be sad if Apple and Epic both come out of this debilitated and broken.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

45 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

They have 40% of sales in the US but the US =/= the world

Sorry, my bad, 59% us market share. The world doesn't matter in this case, since the lawsuits are in the US. 

[Helpful Tech Witch]

7 hours ago, straight_stewie said:

Microsoft never made the promise that the applications available to it where non-malicious.

Google and Apple, however, do make the promise that they vet the apps on their distribution platforms.

Then Google never keeps it's promises. I think "vet" for Google means "running a antivirus and seeing is anything's wrong". Apple, will delay updates days, to pour over the code line by line. (it literally took 2 days after the Android release a few months ago for the iOS update on Injustice 2 to be available)

[Lord Vile]

22 minutes ago, TheTechWizardThatNeedsHelp said:

Sorry, my bad, 59% us market share. The world doesn't matter in this case, since the lawsuits are in the US. 

Source? 

[Jet_ski]

Say what you will about the App Store but Microsoft doesn’t get to complain about it given how terrible the Windows “App Store is.” So many crippled and buggy apps. All Apple needs to do to keep their 30% fee is point at the Microsoft App Store!

[Commodus]

1 hour ago, Jet_ski said:

Say what you will about the App Store but Microsoft doesn’t get to complain about it given how terrible the Windows “App Store is.” So many crippled and buggy apps. All Apple needs to do to keep their 30% fee is point at the Microsoft App Store!

I'd say a more damning criticism is that Microsoft requires game developers on Xbox to go through its store, where it takes a similar cut and can similarly give its own titles a promotional edge. Now, the manager involved was a developer who was pointing out Unreal Engine access issues rather than supporting Epic's main case, but still...

 

I suspect this is as far as Microsoft's support for Epic goes in this case, because it knows that if Epic wins it could change the business models for the Xbox and Microsoft Store.

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, TheTechWizardThatNeedsHelp said:

Then Google never keeps it's promises. I think "vet" for Google means "running a antivirus and seeing is anything's wrong". Apple, will delay updates days, to pour over the code line by line. (it literally took 2 days after the Android release a few months ago for the iOS update on Injustice 2 to be available)

Google relies on algorithms a lot, and it kinda shows the lack of human care on the Google Play store just as much as it does on Google Search and Youtube. (Really Google search is getting extremely cluttered with redirect spam it's making me want to do primary searches on something else.)

[YT_DomDaBomb20]

On 8/24/2020 at 10:02 AM, oeci said:

Gaming on phones is stupid anyway. If I want to play games on the go I get a Switch.

You realize that a switch is capped at 30 FPS. If you want to play competitive Fortnite or any other game, my iPhone XR gets more FPS , actually double 60vs switch 30

[Kisai]

8 minutes ago, YT_DomDaBomb20 said:

You realize that a switch is capped at 30 FPS. If you want to play competitive Fortnite or any other game, my iPhone XR gets more FPS , actually double 60vs switch 30

A Switch has traditional game controller input where as a phone does not.

 

There's different devices for different styles of game play and "on screen virtual controls" may as well be trying to play with your nose. It's passible for turn-based games where the screen itself is more of a virtual mouse, but terrible when you need to hold the phone like a gamepad and obscure one quarter to a half of the phone with your hands.

 

So you basically need to play the game like this:

 

Which isn't really good for your head as either you're looking straight down, or you're holding the controller in the air at eye level.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

6 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

Source? 

Look at the picture, these ask again.

[Lord Vile]

36 minutes ago, TheTechWizardThatNeedsHelp said:

Look at the picture, these ask again.

Yes what is their source?

[Helpful Tech Witch]

5 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Yes what is their source?

https://gs.statcounter.com/faq#methodology

 

Basically, they have software installed on billions of websites that records device, browser, resolution ECT, and then uses that for their data.

[Touch My Hamm]

I would have to read through the full agreement on what the rules are for developing for apple. Since you would be creating "games" for their store on their product they can make whatever rules they want. If people dont like it they can go with a competitor as this is the basis for many other industries. But depending on the wording or the legal stance I am not sure as I am no legal expert. But to me at least if apple wants to kick something from their store they should be able to as nobody is forced to purchase an apple device and it would only drive more people to apples competitors.

[26astr00]

On 8/24/2020 at 2:29 PM, HarryNyquist said:

Epic played stupid games, and have won stupid prizes.

The fact that all these companies have come out "against" Apple at once makes me super suspicious about how well-organized this is. They had the suit ready in hours, an ad campaign ready in hours, multiple big-name companies with them in days, and throughout all of this, everyone has forgotten it was also nuked from the Google Play Store for the exact same reason it was nuked from the Apple App Store.

Finally a company attacking Apple's monopoly, I've been waiting for this for nearly ten years

[Lord Vile]

33 minutes ago, TheTechWizardThatNeedsHelp said:

https://gs.statcounter.com/faq#methodology

 

Basically, they have software installed on billions of websites that records device, browser, resolution ECT, and then uses that for their data.

So all the data shows is internet traffic not actual marketshare… All you can draw from that is iOS users use the internet more.

[LAwLz]

Of course Microsoft joins the fight against Apple.

Office is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, profit makers for Microsoft. We're talking billions of dollars yearly. Apple wants to take a 30% cut on that from iOS is ridiculous. 

 

What Microsoft calls "commercial cloud" where Office 365 is the lion share has an annualized run rate of 50 BILLION dollars. Of course, only a small fraction of that are probably from iOS sales (if you can even buy it on iOS?) but I mean, we're potentially talking about BILLIONS of dollars Microsoft has to just hand over to Apple just because Apple demades a 30% cut and doesn't allow any way of circumventing it.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Of course Microsoft joins the fight against Apple.

Office is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, profit makers for Microsoft. We're talking billions of dollars yearly. Apple wants to take a 30% cut on that from iOS is ridiculous. 

 

What Microsoft calls "commercial cloud" where Office 365 is the lion share has an annualized run rate of 50 BILLION dollars. Of course, only a small fraction of that are probably from iOS sales (if you can even buy it on iOS?) but I mean, we're potentially talking about BILLIONS of dollars Microsoft has to just hand over to Apple just because Apple demades a 30% cut and doesn't allow any way of circumventing it.

 

As logical and rational as that is,  people (for what ever reason) just think apple are entitled to take it.  Someone even tried to argue this was a non issue because Epic made $1M a day out of the app store (don't know if he figure is real or not), but the logic is flawed if that's what they think.  Fortnight generates that money, not the app store, therefore apple are not entitled $300K a day for little more than payment processing.

 

Just like you said, office generates that money for MS, not the shop they initially sell it through.

 

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, Lord Vile said:

So all the data shows is internet traffic not actual marketshare… All you can draw from that is iOS users use the internet more.

For domestic devices its way more accurate than sales figures.  People buy to replace broken, failed, lost or just crappy phones.  Mainly the cheap android phones (no one tries to get a refund or replacement on a 6 month old $50 phone, they don't even bother with insurance).  Which means if you going on sales figures the android figure is likely to be way more exaggerated on repeat sales of dodgy phones than iphone.   People take their iphones to apple for repair if it breaks or get a new on on insurance.

 

 

[Lord Vile]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

For domestic devices its way more accurate than sales figures.  People buy to replace broken, failed, lost or just crappy phones.  Mainly the cheap android phones (no one tries to get a refund or replacement on a 6 month old $50 phone, they don't even bother with insurance).  Which means if you going on sales figures the android figure is likely to be way more exaggerated on repeat sales of dodgy phones than iphone.   People take their iphones to apple for repair if it breaks or get a new on on insurance.

 

 

Apart from it's not due to it being based off of website results so if one group frequents the sites they monitor more then it throws the entire result out. What about VPNs for example how does it log those. 

[mr moose]

4 minutes ago, Lord Vile said:

Apart from it's not due to it being based off of website results so if one group frequents the sites they monitor more then it throws the entire result out. What about VPNs for example how does it log those. 

It's easy to ignore VPN,  those web requests don't originate from a mobile source.   They also don't just take raw numbers and then go, well that's it.   There is a process in data collection where you have to average and account for confidence.  They can do that by ensuring their  loggers are numerous and well spaced,  they know which sites are more popular than others and they can differentiate by demographic.   

 

Basic good statistical analysis will provide more accurate results than sales figures alone.  Sales figures (shipments) do not account for replacements devices, devices sitting in warehouses or devices broken in bedside drawers or on hold as a Christmas present.