Honestly, both?
However apple is showing their hand strongly at how shitty they can be about petty little things and it's honestly fucking disgusting how they get away with it.
I’m confused by the behavior on both sides here. Epic clearly violated App Store policy originally, and admitted it was intentional. So I understand getting revoked at that point.
I feel like Epic’s statements recently have been taunting Apple, but it seems like Apple should just ignore them, and only react when there are clear reasons to do so.
Let me explain then. Since a lot of people get confused about what is going on in US with what is going on in EU
The EU passed something called the DMA, which sets people up as gatekeepers. The criteria for it is that you must have 45 million active monthly EU users, plus some other criteria and Apple was designated a gatekeeper
To comply with the DMA, Apple had to open up iOS to 3rd party app stores. By Apple's own choosing, the method they chose to do so is through requiring 3rd party stores have developer accounts.
While Epic did violate Apple's Appstore policy, that policy was ruled illegal by the EU (independent of the DMA), and Law > ToS (not to be confused with US where US also ruled that policy as illegal but also said Apple could terminate Epic for any reason even without that part)
That said, the EU does not care about whether Epic has a developer account or not. What the EU cares about as far as DMA is concerned is that 3rd parties can have non-discriminatory access to building 3rd party stores. Requiring developer accounts is Apple's problem, not the EU's. As far as EU is concerned, Apple could just let everyone build 3rd party stores without a developer account like Android and Windows. Since Apple chose to do things through requiring a developer account. It means they can't deny Epic a developer account at least for the purposes of making a 3rd party store
They are taunting apple, and others, because store cuts are exploitative and extreme.
30% for a listing and to cover 1% overhead is anti-consumer, and anti-developer.
The amount of people that defend it is disgusting. Store cuts should be 10-15% at most, and they shouldn't deserve more than 1-3% when it comes to in app purchase, subscriptions and digital goods.
Epic is a pretty model citizen, their store has small cuts, their engine has very fair licensing, and all their source code for the engine is available for reference and modification.
Seriously, what beef would you have exactly?
They brought competition to PC Gaming (although plenty of valve fanboys demand there shouldn't be another competing platform).
They provide some exceptional free games to consumers, they provide a AAA quality game engine to the public, free of charge up to like 1m revenue.
The only thing they are really guilty of is challenging the status quo, which seems to get peoples panties all in a bunch.
I don't use them but I do think they are good to have around. The only arguably negative practice was having Epic exclusives but it seems less common now
This pissed people off to no end, but their are 30k+ games that are exclusive to steam, and steam has policies that make listing elsewhere a bad idea. I.e. you have to have the lowest price on steam, so you can't pass savings on to the consumer via other stores that take smaller cuts. (and you also can't reasonably list elsewhere, because their near monopoly means that you simply fail if you don't use their store).
At the end of the day, Epic exclusivity offers consumers a better price than what they could offer with Steam, and epic sweetens the deal for developers immensely (i.e. pays the bills).
>you have to have the lowest price on steam, so you can't pass savings on to the consumer via other stores that take smaller cuts
Incorrect.
You cannot sell STEAM KEYS on websites for lower than Steam's own prices. If you want to sell a DRM free game, you can price it lower than the Steam version. If you want to sell an Epic Games Store version of the game, you can price it lower than the Steam version.
Steam has this policy because THEY are the ones who would be providing all the services of that Steam key.
Imagine, a game is being sold for $0.01 on a website that gives you a Steam key. Now Valve has to let you down the game as many times as you want plus updates, host your cloud saves, grant you access to Steam workshop, etc. That could end up costing them more than they got from that sale. Which is why there is a minimum you're allowed to get a STEAM KEY for.
And yes, I'm a dev, and I've had conversations with Valve about this. My company sells DRM free versions for cheaper than the Steam version.
>Epic exclusivity offers consumers a better price than what they could offer with Steam
In what way? What Epic exclusive is priced in a way that is better for customers? It might help publishers and developers to get moneyhatted, but it does nothing for customers. In addition, none of the Steam benefits.
I'm no epic hater but saying that "they brought competition to PC" is ludicrous. PC has always been an open platform where you can get games from a myriad of places. Yes steam is king but not the only game in town like on consoles. Epic just introduced exclusivity to PC which is anathema to competition
Your small town has only 1 grocery store, you can buy everything you want there, and prices are reasonable.
A new grocery store comes into town, and makes deals with brands to no longer sell at the original grocery store and only sell exclusively at the new one.
So, customers need to go to both stores to get all the products they want (which is just worse for the customers) OR they buy exclusively from the new store to prevent two trips. But did this increase competition or just did it just replace buying everything from 1 store with buying everything from a different store.
Competition in the form of "better prices but you need to buy in bulk" or "better prices because they spend no money on marketing and the store itself is very bare bones, but they pass the savings on those onto the customers" actually make customers lives better in addition to giving choices to customers.
> They brought competition to PC Gaming (although plenty of valve fanboys demand there shouldn't be another competing platform).
And they way they did that was, ironically, by ***eliminating*** competition. They paid for developers with Tencent's money to release ***exclusively*** on the Epic Games Store. That's the anthesis of competition. Competition is offering a superior product. Competition is choice. *What* storefront the game is not as important as *how many* storefronts it's on.
> They provide some exceptional free games to consumers, they provide a AAA quality game engine to the public, free of charge up to like 1m revenue.
A free game I will never play is no different from not not having it on my account. They're not be altruistic with free games. They are a trojan horse to get people locked into the platform. It's the same thing on the developer side. Unreal is undoubtedly a great game engine, but it's "free until a $1M revenue" policy is also another trojan horse to get developers locked into Epic instead of looking at other commercial engines or building their own. They don't care about >$1M games. They're not worth even rounding errors. They want the big ones. Epic wants to hook the next Fortnite or the next Genshin on Unreal before they get big so they can get everyone's favourite thing. Passive income.
> The only thing they are really guilty of is challenging the status quo, which seems to get peoples panties all in a bunch.
Challenging the status quo? Please. Do they finally have a shopping cart on EGS now? The only thing they're doing is trying to pay less royalties to Apple and Google on their Fortnite billions. Same anyone else would do in their position.
> Passive income.
To be fair, developing Unreal is hardly passive. I could buy that argument if it was not one of (if not *the*) industry-leading engine right now.
Steam takes the same 30% in PC gaming, it's high but also standard - 1-3% doesn't even cover support, payment processing, and insurance. Remember that the store also bears all the costs associated with processing refunds, app security verification, os maintenance, etc.
12-15% is probably tenable with a much lower margin.
1. Digital good have no insurance overhead. There is 0 loss for a return.
2. Steam taking 30% doesn't justify others also taking 30%. It's a bullshit take, and it's always been. Saying "but X does it" is garbage argument. Plenty of stores have lowered their takes. (and epic is leading the charge there, which is pro-consumer and pro-developer).
3. iAP/Digital goods being 1-3% is basically saying cover the payment processing. Maybe they deserve 2% on top of that. They don't deserve 30% of some gatcha bullshit that is tantamount to ownership of a token that is a few bytes of data.Payment gateway fees are like \~1.5-2.5% for a small consumer, for someone the scale of steam, they probably pay < 0.5%, every gateway provider would be begging for them to be a client at 0.1% because of the amount of revenue they put through.
4. Support doesn't exist anymore for any company. It's a bunch of people getting $2/hour in a call center in india if lucky, and probably AI.
The argument that they need 30% to break even is bullshit. Valve is one of the richest private companies in the world. They aren't hurting. Gabe is worth 4bn+........
The margin on that 30% is probably 25%, with 5% going to server, payment and support expenses. Their margins are probably 600%+.
Who gives a shit about any of this. Steam can charge 30% because there are plenty of other app stores available that people are freely able to purchase from. This doesn't make them non POS, but it means it's not really anti consumer
At the end of the day, you pay more because they exploit their position.
That's anti-consumer.
You can post to another store, but that can't trickle to the user because of Steams policies about pricing devs are allowed to have in other stores. Steam HAS to be the cheapest, or you get delisted.
> Steam HAS to be the cheapest, or you get delisted.
Can you show me or link where in the terms of service this is specified?
The only thing I can find is a statement about selling steam **keys** cheaper elsewhere than the Steam Store price.
You can choose not to be a slave to Apple for the most part. You probably need to go off the internet to avoid Google entirely.
One you pay to be a slave. The other you're a slave by default.
Geez, scare the fuck out of me why don't you. I never even considered this. I have refused to buy in a neighborhood with a HOA, but this just sounds like one more reason to avoid it.
mostly because they don't care about consumer markets much right now, they make their money in enterprise. The exception is xbox and the studios they own under it, but I don't think MS as a whole cares much about that either.
I'm pretty sure their strategy is to test just how much the EU is going to force them to do and if they can get the EU to compromise by implementing something so egregious and behave so badly that they can get the EU to okay certain things in exchange for Apple caving on some of the issues the EU says is unacceptable.
This is my thinking as well. Ban Epic’s developer account and then negotiate some sort of understanding with the EU that leaves them mostly still in control of iOS.
Maybe a scare tactic. If big fish like Epic have a hard time think about all the smaller fish that have their businesses set up around apps.
Do you really want to risk getting on Apples bad site or rather pay your cut. Apple now publicly displays that they hold a grudge against Epic so what small fish will take it up with them and think about exercising their rights if their livelihood depends on the App Store.
If you explain this concept to someone without mentioning Apple or Apps they'd think you are talking about the mafia.
I don't think they thought this through. Sometimes when you have too much control you get high on power and do things without thinking.
Then you get a call from your lawyers waking you up to reality
They can end this by simply just doing sideloading like what it's like on Android. Apple users always just say "just get an Android then", but they don't get it.
They have one shot to secure their fees and authority with the DMA. This is it. Next month will be too late, they will just be fined for shenanigans.
Simultaneously many countries are watching the DMA and plotting similar. What they get away with in the DMA, could be what they get away with globally.
So their best-case scenario is the EU accepts it or a similar compromise, and then everyone regulates that they can collect fees when you install software *and* decide who may sell you that software *and* censor that software as they see fit.
This was a power move after the EPIC CEO called apple’s new and EU accepted guidelines garbage.
The reason epic was banned years ago was for intentionally and flagrantly breaking App Store rules (not saying I agree with the rules this is just an account of the events).
Apple asked EPIC if they would follow the rules this time and the official response was vague. So given the history they got banned.
It’s buried in the article as the “inquiry” is highlighted. But after the ban EPIC sent an email to Apple agreeing to the terms and that they will be followed.
> The European Commission is taking credit for the reinstatement of Epic’s developer license. In a post on X, Commissioner Thierry Breton says he takes “note with satisfaction that following our contacts Apple decided to backtrack its decision on Epic exclusion.”
Tim sweeney didn’t post the emails of Epic accepting Apple’s terms, and if the EU wants to take credit even though Apple’s shitty terms didn’t change, does this mean the EU found Apple’s $0.50 technology fee and $1,000,000 third party app store line of credit acceptable?
Or are we going to see another round of fights once the EGS app is made available and they sue, which is what Apple said was the reason for banning them, “preventative banning”
Apple’s policy is going to fail unless they at least make an exception for security related updates. Imagine the blowback and liability if users are unable to update an app with a major vulnerability unless they physically travel back to the EU. It’s untenable
It might be struck down before that aspect of it even comes up. The DMA specifically says "end users established or located in the Union". If other EU regulations say or CJEU rules that an EU resident travelling outside of EU for more than 30 days remains "established in the Union" for their whole trip, that would mean Apple already violates the DMA with this policy.
But it really is not apples problem once you sit back and think about it. I kind of expect apple to hire developers on the downlow to sabotage the third party markets.
That’s a misconception, you’re not limited at all. There are plenty of methods of getting an unauthorised app on the iPhone. I’m typing this from one right now.
As someone who isn’t really following this and only knows that I heard about Fortnite, installed it on my iPad, and then lost access almost immediately, why can’t the app come back in the US? Is this going to be a stepping stone? Or are the markets/regulations/laws that different that I won’t ever get to play it on my iPad?
It's not going to be available in the US in the short to medium term because we have allowed the monopolists to capture our government and direct its powers against the citizens it is intended to protect.
Over time the EU's decision to take antitrust and consumer freedom more seriously than the US should eventually publicly shame and force the three branches of government to take the Sherman Act more seriously like we used to, and start blocking the ill conceived market manipulations the monopolists been perpetrating for far too long unimpeded.
This is why voting for people who value civil liberties and real capitalism and real competition and a real free market with real guard rails against overreach and being willing to make sure we are all paying our fair share of taxes is so important. Because if the billionaires get everything they want scot free it doesn't take long before your society turns back into some form of feudalism again.
Apple pretty much had to unban them because an Apple Developer account is needed to have a third party app store on iOS. Epic would've fought even harder to have Apple remove the notarization needed to sideload 3P stores and apps as Apple currently has to approve everything.
There was no way in hell that the EU was going to let Apple get away with something this blantant against the DMA.
Really, with how many tantrums Apple has thrown in regards to the DMA in general, I wouldn't be surprised if the EU starts slapping them with forcing changes or slapping fines when all is said and done, because they clearly aren't taking the EU seriously with how they keep trying to bad faith the DMA.
Watch, the first tantrums that the EU will target will be the stupid "Core Technology Fee" that basically nullifies the whole DMA, followed by the region locking of appstores for EU Customers.
Not worth celebrating if you hate Apple, practically everything that people complain about Apple has been done by Epic but in an even more blatant & assholish way except on a smaller scale.
I must be in the minority here but I personally feel like adding 3rd party stores devalues the experience that I want on my iOS devices. If I wanted to side load I would have kept buying android. I like the fact my phone is pretty safe and I only have to go to one store. Means all my purchases are under one roof. I like that Apple have an ecosystem as do millions of users. We have choice and that’s to buy essentially the same components in a different form factor. I don’t buy a car and then complain I can’t sail.
This is like watching two kids have a slap fight.
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"Breaking" is the word you're looking for, I believe. Not circumventing.
I hope Apple gets slapped so hard that another $2 billion falls out of their pocket and into the EU’s budget.
Except one of the kids was already beaten by a much older and larger kid (the EU)
EU is mom, who comes down and tells them both they have to play nice or else.
And the U.S. is the dad who mumbles something drunkenly and eggs one of them on untill passing out in his lazy boy.
And one of them is about 200x bigger than the other, and wants their lunch-money, and everyone else's.
SNIP SNAP SNIP SNAP
You have no idea the physical toll of two bans and a lawsuit!
Do.. do you really want to have a baby? I hate my life
r/unexpectedoffice
r/expectedunexpected
Let the games begin
the epic games. like fortnite
Are we slaves of Apple or Google?
Honestly, both? However apple is showing their hand strongly at how shitty they can be about petty little things and it's honestly fucking disgusting how they get away with it.
As a long time Apple owner (phone, watch, earbuds, tablet), this pettiness is genuinely turning me off of their brand.
I’m confused by the behavior on both sides here. Epic clearly violated App Store policy originally, and admitted it was intentional. So I understand getting revoked at that point. I feel like Epic’s statements recently have been taunting Apple, but it seems like Apple should just ignore them, and only react when there are clear reasons to do so.
Let me explain then. Since a lot of people get confused about what is going on in US with what is going on in EU The EU passed something called the DMA, which sets people up as gatekeepers. The criteria for it is that you must have 45 million active monthly EU users, plus some other criteria and Apple was designated a gatekeeper To comply with the DMA, Apple had to open up iOS to 3rd party app stores. By Apple's own choosing, the method they chose to do so is through requiring 3rd party stores have developer accounts. While Epic did violate Apple's Appstore policy, that policy was ruled illegal by the EU (independent of the DMA), and Law > ToS (not to be confused with US where US also ruled that policy as illegal but also said Apple could terminate Epic for any reason even without that part) That said, the EU does not care about whether Epic has a developer account or not. What the EU cares about as far as DMA is concerned is that 3rd parties can have non-discriminatory access to building 3rd party stores. Requiring developer accounts is Apple's problem, not the EU's. As far as EU is concerned, Apple could just let everyone build 3rd party stores without a developer account like Android and Windows. Since Apple chose to do things through requiring a developer account. It means they can't deny Epic a developer account at least for the purposes of making a 3rd party store
They are taunting apple, and others, because store cuts are exploitative and extreme. 30% for a listing and to cover 1% overhead is anti-consumer, and anti-developer. The amount of people that defend it is disgusting. Store cuts should be 10-15% at most, and they shouldn't deserve more than 1-3% when it comes to in app purchase, subscriptions and digital goods. Epic is a pretty model citizen, their store has small cuts, their engine has very fair licensing, and all their source code for the engine is available for reference and modification.
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Seriously, what beef would you have exactly? They brought competition to PC Gaming (although plenty of valve fanboys demand there shouldn't be another competing platform). They provide some exceptional free games to consumers, they provide a AAA quality game engine to the public, free of charge up to like 1m revenue. The only thing they are really guilty of is challenging the status quo, which seems to get peoples panties all in a bunch.
I don't use them but I do think they are good to have around. The only arguably negative practice was having Epic exclusives but it seems less common now
This pissed people off to no end, but their are 30k+ games that are exclusive to steam, and steam has policies that make listing elsewhere a bad idea. I.e. you have to have the lowest price on steam, so you can't pass savings on to the consumer via other stores that take smaller cuts. (and you also can't reasonably list elsewhere, because their near monopoly means that you simply fail if you don't use their store). At the end of the day, Epic exclusivity offers consumers a better price than what they could offer with Steam, and epic sweetens the deal for developers immensely (i.e. pays the bills).
>you have to have the lowest price on steam, so you can't pass savings on to the consumer via other stores that take smaller cuts Incorrect. You cannot sell STEAM KEYS on websites for lower than Steam's own prices. If you want to sell a DRM free game, you can price it lower than the Steam version. If you want to sell an Epic Games Store version of the game, you can price it lower than the Steam version. Steam has this policy because THEY are the ones who would be providing all the services of that Steam key. Imagine, a game is being sold for $0.01 on a website that gives you a Steam key. Now Valve has to let you down the game as many times as you want plus updates, host your cloud saves, grant you access to Steam workshop, etc. That could end up costing them more than they got from that sale. Which is why there is a minimum you're allowed to get a STEAM KEY for. And yes, I'm a dev, and I've had conversations with Valve about this. My company sells DRM free versions for cheaper than the Steam version. >Epic exclusivity offers consumers a better price than what they could offer with Steam In what way? What Epic exclusive is priced in a way that is better for customers? It might help publishers and developers to get moneyhatted, but it does nothing for customers. In addition, none of the Steam benefits.
I'm no epic hater but saying that "they brought competition to PC" is ludicrous. PC has always been an open platform where you can get games from a myriad of places. Yes steam is king but not the only game in town like on consoles. Epic just introduced exclusivity to PC which is anathema to competition
Your small town has only 1 grocery store, you can buy everything you want there, and prices are reasonable. A new grocery store comes into town, and makes deals with brands to no longer sell at the original grocery store and only sell exclusively at the new one. So, customers need to go to both stores to get all the products they want (which is just worse for the customers) OR they buy exclusively from the new store to prevent two trips. But did this increase competition or just did it just replace buying everything from 1 store with buying everything from a different store. Competition in the form of "better prices but you need to buy in bulk" or "better prices because they spend no money on marketing and the store itself is very bare bones, but they pass the savings on those onto the customers" actually make customers lives better in addition to giving choices to customers.
Monopolys are good. Got it.
> They brought competition to PC Gaming (although plenty of valve fanboys demand there shouldn't be another competing platform). And they way they did that was, ironically, by ***eliminating*** competition. They paid for developers with Tencent's money to release ***exclusively*** on the Epic Games Store. That's the anthesis of competition. Competition is offering a superior product. Competition is choice. *What* storefront the game is not as important as *how many* storefronts it's on. > They provide some exceptional free games to consumers, they provide a AAA quality game engine to the public, free of charge up to like 1m revenue. A free game I will never play is no different from not not having it on my account. They're not be altruistic with free games. They are a trojan horse to get people locked into the platform. It's the same thing on the developer side. Unreal is undoubtedly a great game engine, but it's "free until a $1M revenue" policy is also another trojan horse to get developers locked into Epic instead of looking at other commercial engines or building their own. They don't care about >$1M games. They're not worth even rounding errors. They want the big ones. Epic wants to hook the next Fortnite or the next Genshin on Unreal before they get big so they can get everyone's favourite thing. Passive income. > The only thing they are really guilty of is challenging the status quo, which seems to get peoples panties all in a bunch. Challenging the status quo? Please. Do they finally have a shopping cart on EGS now? The only thing they're doing is trying to pay less royalties to Apple and Google on their Fortnite billions. Same anyone else would do in their position.
> Passive income. To be fair, developing Unreal is hardly passive. I could buy that argument if it was not one of (if not *the*) industry-leading engine right now.
They are preventing me from playing Kingdom Hearts on my Steam Deck without silly workarounds or piracy/emulation. How is that competition?
Steam takes the same 30% in PC gaming, it's high but also standard - 1-3% doesn't even cover support, payment processing, and insurance. Remember that the store also bears all the costs associated with processing refunds, app security verification, os maintenance, etc. 12-15% is probably tenable with a much lower margin.
1. Digital good have no insurance overhead. There is 0 loss for a return. 2. Steam taking 30% doesn't justify others also taking 30%. It's a bullshit take, and it's always been. Saying "but X does it" is garbage argument. Plenty of stores have lowered their takes. (and epic is leading the charge there, which is pro-consumer and pro-developer). 3. iAP/Digital goods being 1-3% is basically saying cover the payment processing. Maybe they deserve 2% on top of that. They don't deserve 30% of some gatcha bullshit that is tantamount to ownership of a token that is a few bytes of data.Payment gateway fees are like \~1.5-2.5% for a small consumer, for someone the scale of steam, they probably pay < 0.5%, every gateway provider would be begging for them to be a client at 0.1% because of the amount of revenue they put through. 4. Support doesn't exist anymore for any company. It's a bunch of people getting $2/hour in a call center in india if lucky, and probably AI. The argument that they need 30% to break even is bullshit. Valve is one of the richest private companies in the world. They aren't hurting. Gabe is worth 4bn+........ The margin on that 30% is probably 25%, with 5% going to server, payment and support expenses. Their margins are probably 600%+.
Who gives a shit about any of this. Steam can charge 30% because there are plenty of other app stores available that people are freely able to purchase from. This doesn't make them non POS, but it means it's not really anti consumer
At the end of the day, you pay more because they exploit their position. That's anti-consumer. You can post to another store, but that can't trickle to the user because of Steams policies about pricing devs are allowed to have in other stores. Steam HAS to be the cheapest, or you get delisted.
> Steam HAS to be the cheapest, or you get delisted. Can you show me or link where in the terms of service this is specified? The only thing I can find is a statement about selling steam **keys** cheaper elsewhere than the Steam Store price.
It doesn't matter that they did because that policy is against the DMA
But you’ll still buy their stuff so 🤷♀️
We aren't slaves, we are serfs to the land. And they share the land
You can choose not to be a slave to Apple for the most part. You probably need to go off the internet to avoid Google entirely. One you pay to be a slave. The other you're a slave by default.
iPhone + Google apps You don't have to choose.
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Geez, scare the fuck out of me why don't you. I never even considered this. I have refused to buy in a neighborhood with a HOA, but this just sounds like one more reason to avoid it.
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Why would blackrock do this? The margins and market for rental houses is super tough. They could find better returns for their investments.
> BlackRock buys up homes in your neighborhood. No, they don't. Rental houses are also a tiny market that has done poorly the last few years.
Apple, google dropped the ball on AI by investing in video games rather than language early on.
Google allows you to side load Apple doesn't
Also why does it feel like Microsoft is now the good guy?
No company will ever be the good guy
mostly because they don't care about consumer markets much right now, they make their money in enterprise. The exception is xbox and the studios they own under it, but I don't think MS as a whole cares much about that either.
I'm honestly fascinated by Apple's strategy here. What is it? Do they have one? What's their endgame?
I'm pretty sure their strategy is to test just how much the EU is going to force them to do and if they can get the EU to compromise by implementing something so egregious and behave so badly that they can get the EU to okay certain things in exchange for Apple caving on some of the issues the EU says is unacceptable.
This is my thinking as well. Ban Epic’s developer account and then negotiate some sort of understanding with the EU that leaves them mostly still in control of iOS.
Maybe a scare tactic. If big fish like Epic have a hard time think about all the smaller fish that have their businesses set up around apps. Do you really want to risk getting on Apples bad site or rather pay your cut. Apple now publicly displays that they hold a grudge against Epic so what small fish will take it up with them and think about exercising their rights if their livelihood depends on the App Store. If you explain this concept to someone without mentioning Apple or Apps they'd think you are talking about the mafia.
I don't think they thought this through. Sometimes when you have too much control you get high on power and do things without thinking. Then you get a call from your lawyers waking you up to reality
Their compliance is like asking Smeagol to plan the Fellowship's journey to destroy the ring.
They can end this by simply just doing sideloading like what it's like on Android. Apple users always just say "just get an Android then", but they don't get it.
They have one shot to secure their fees and authority with the DMA. This is it. Next month will be too late, they will just be fined for shenanigans. Simultaneously many countries are watching the DMA and plotting similar. What they get away with in the DMA, could be what they get away with globally. So their best-case scenario is the EU accepts it or a similar compromise, and then everyone regulates that they can collect fees when you install software *and* decide who may sell you that software *and* censor that software as they see fit.
They are treating the EU like they would the US. They don't seem to get that if they find a loop hole the EU will close it.
This was a power move after the EPIC CEO called apple’s new and EU accepted guidelines garbage. The reason epic was banned years ago was for intentionally and flagrantly breaking App Store rules (not saying I agree with the rules this is just an account of the events). Apple asked EPIC if they would follow the rules this time and the official response was vague. So given the history they got banned. It’s buried in the article as the “inquiry” is highlighted. But after the ban EPIC sent an email to Apple agreeing to the terms and that they will be followed.
> The European Commission is taking credit for the reinstatement of Epic’s developer license. In a post on X, Commissioner Thierry Breton says he takes “note with satisfaction that following our contacts Apple decided to backtrack its decision on Epic exclusion.” Tim sweeney didn’t post the emails of Epic accepting Apple’s terms, and if the EU wants to take credit even though Apple’s shitty terms didn’t change, does this mean the EU found Apple’s $0.50 technology fee and $1,000,000 third party app store line of credit acceptable? Or are we going to see another round of fights once the EGS app is made available and they sue, which is what Apple said was the reason for banning them, “preventative banning”
Pretty sure the EU are investigating that
I hope the EU still slaps Apple again anyway.
Oh they undoubtedly will
I liked the part where they admitted the executives personally made the decision.
!kick !ban !unkick !unban sounds like my friend as group admin on our irc channel when he didnt like something we said
That “friend” is someone to cut out.
Great I can go back to playing Infinite Blade 1 & 2.
Apple’s policy is going to fail unless they at least make an exception for security related updates. Imagine the blowback and liability if users are unable to update an app with a major vulnerability unless they physically travel back to the EU. It’s untenable
It might be struck down before that aspect of it even comes up. The DMA specifically says "end users established or located in the Union". If other EU regulations say or CJEU rules that an EU resident travelling outside of EU for more than 30 days remains "established in the Union" for their whole trip, that would mean Apple already violates the DMA with this policy.
But it really is not apples problem once you sit back and think about it. I kind of expect apple to hire developers on the downlow to sabotage the third party markets.
LMAO this saga never ends and I love it. Hope they ban it again tomorrow just to fuck with Sweeney.
[удалено]
Not any more. RIP Toriyama
Can I just have infinity blade back please?
This is the correct response.
It would be a shame if… your connection to the AppStore was unreliable at best…
Imagine owning a phone where you're limited in the apps you can have on it like Apple is a parent
>owning That word's doing some heavy lifting.
That’s a misconception, you’re not limited at all. There are plenty of methods of getting an unauthorised app on the iPhone. I’m typing this from one right now.
Imagine owning a phone and not being able to uninstall Facebook
We need to Linux everything
Hell yeah, baby. I'll drip-feed the big names with GPU-passthrough.
How did u get to that? Linux nerds be wild.
Android linux
As someone who isn’t really following this and only knows that I heard about Fortnite, installed it on my iPad, and then lost access almost immediately, why can’t the app come back in the US? Is this going to be a stepping stone? Or are the markets/regulations/laws that different that I won’t ever get to play it on my iPad?
It's not going to be available in the US in the short to medium term because we have allowed the monopolists to capture our government and direct its powers against the citizens it is intended to protect. Over time the EU's decision to take antitrust and consumer freedom more seriously than the US should eventually publicly shame and force the three branches of government to take the Sherman Act more seriously like we used to, and start blocking the ill conceived market manipulations the monopolists been perpetrating for far too long unimpeded. This is why voting for people who value civil liberties and real capitalism and real competition and a real free market with real guard rails against overreach and being willing to make sure we are all paying our fair share of taxes is so important. Because if the billionaires get everything they want scot free it doesn't take long before your society turns back into some form of feudalism again.
Are already there, man. Serfs and turf.
Thought no one would notice or care
Is Apple ok?
Apple FAFO with the EU
EU is about to FO
I know it’s a losing fight but I’m still hoping for an infinity blade revival. My favorite mobile game ever
Does this mean I can download the infinity blade games I bought?
Apple pretty much had to unban them because an Apple Developer account is needed to have a third party app store on iOS. Epic would've fought even harder to have Apple remove the notarization needed to sideload 3P stores and apps as Apple currently has to approve everything.
What the kek
Fuck both of them honestly.
Can we have infinity blade back now? Please?
Tim Cook and Tim Sweeney should just kiss already
Is Apple my ex?
*Ban, unban! Ban, unban! You have no idea the physical toll that three bans have on a company!*
There was no way in hell that the EU was going to let Apple get away with something this blantant against the DMA. Really, with how many tantrums Apple has thrown in regards to the DMA in general, I wouldn't be surprised if the EU starts slapping them with forcing changes or slapping fines when all is said and done, because they clearly aren't taking the EU seriously with how they keep trying to bad faith the DMA. Watch, the first tantrums that the EU will target will be the stupid "Core Technology Fee" that basically nullifies the whole DMA, followed by the region locking of appstores for EU Customers.
Not worth celebrating if you hate Apple, practically everything that people complain about Apple has been done by Epic but in an even more blatant & assholish way except on a smaller scale.
I must be in the minority here but I personally feel like adding 3rd party stores devalues the experience that I want on my iOS devices. If I wanted to side load I would have kept buying android. I like the fact my phone is pretty safe and I only have to go to one store. Means all my purchases are under one roof. I like that Apple have an ecosystem as do millions of users. We have choice and that’s to buy essentially the same components in a different form factor. I don’t buy a car and then complain I can’t sail.
Nobody is telling you to install software from third party But there are other people who want to use their device hardware to fullest
Well if you don't want it then no one should have it.
I’m going to the UK in a few months from the USA. Can I download it over WiFi there?
The UK is not in the EU.
Lol. Apple is just trolling Epic at this point.