Epic Games’ Fortnite violated Apple’s App Store guidelines
Posted on 09/10/2021 11:18:50 AM PDT by Swordmaker
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers handed down a decision in the Epic Games v. Apple trial on Friday. Rogers issued an injunction that said that Apple will no longer be allowed to prohibit developers from providing links or other communications that direct users away from Apple in-app purchasing.
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Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers handed down a decision in a closely-watched trial between Apple and Epic Games on Friday.Rogers ordered an injunction that said that Apple will no longer be allowed to prohibit developers from providing links or other communications that direct users away from Apple in-app purchasing, of which it takes 15% to 30%.
The decision concludes the first part of the battle between the two companies over Apple’s App Store policies and whether they stifle competition. Apple won on 9 of 10 counts but will be forced to change its App Store policies and loosen its grip over in-app purchases.
The trial took place in Oakland, California in May, and included both company CEOs testifying in open court. People familiar with the trial previously told CNBC that both sides expected the decision to be appealed regardless of what it was.
MacDailyNews Take: Rodgers says that Apple will no longer be allowed to prohibit developers from providing links or other communications that direct users away from Apple in-app purchasing.
You know, because Best Buy and Target are forced by a judge’s injunction to place signs next to each product that advertise lower prices for the same items at Walmart.
Oh, wait, they aren’t forced to do that by some ditzy judge. Because it’s ludicrous, illogical, and just plan wrong.
If these developers like Epic Games want to advertise lower prices using Apple’s App Store, Apple should charge an in-store advertising fee. We suggest it be 15% for developers making under $1 million per year and 30% for those making $1 million or more annually.
Apple should appeal.
“You know, because Best Buy and Target are forced by a judge’s injunction to place signs next to each product that advertise lower prices for the same items at Walmart.”
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What a stupid metaphor!
Apple (devices) are a platform.
This is not analogous to a retailer (re)selling a products.
This would be like an arena telling a band that only the arena can sell tickets in house (not a ticket service) and only they can sell band merchandise, and what would be worse is that the band has basically no other arena’s that they can choose to play in.
If you want on or off the Apple/Mac/iOS Ping List, Freepmail me.
One small step. They really should be forced to divest their app store, or at a minimum allow people to put whatever app they want on their phones.
Added to my shares of T on the dip. It has some very good things happening that will outweigh this little blip.
Whoops, meant to write that I added to my shares of APPL and T on the dip. Both have good things going on that will pay off soon.
Likely won’t stand on appeal. It is Apple’s platform and Apple’s app store. Apple’s agreements state that if you, an app developer, wants to distribute your software through their store, and for use on their platform devices, you have to give them a share of your revenue. This applies also to any add-on revenue you derive from add-on purchases within those apps.
Epic agreed to these terms when they made their apps available on the Apple app store. It wasn’t a secret, and no one put a gun to their head and made them do it. They could have focused on the Android market, then Windows-phone market, the game-console market, or even developed and sold their own platform. Epic CHOSE to offer their apps via Apple and agreed to the terms of the deal. I have zero sympathy for them.
In fact, if Epic were smart, they’d capitalize on the popularity of Fortnite and bump their price up for Apple subscribers by however much they need to so that they are agnostic as to which platform their users opt for. Instead, they want the courts to get them some special terms, rather than codifying the ones they themselves already agreed to.
Good. Just like the Microsoft IE case.
Is this the same Apple computer company that bitched for years about Microsoft having a monopoly on Windows and they said that was unfair, yet, here they are complaining about someone getting around their monopoly??
Phyrric victory.
Yes, everyone else can now (well, after appeals come to nothing) provide alternate payment systems.
Epic violated the contract, was duly kicked off the platform permanently, and the judge noted that Apple doesn’t have to let Epic back.
Judge found that AAPL is not a monopoly, but google is according to a financial interview I saw this morning.
Uh, no.
Not at all analogous. It’s Apple’s Store. You can’t go into someone’s store and sell your products in their store without permission, nor can send them to your store to pay, after poaching the customers out of someone else’s store. Advertise all you want elsewhere, but don’t trespass to do it, or invade another business’ business model to advertise your products and expect them to not be compensated.
Microsoft built Internet Explorer, an application, into their Operating System, gave it preferential access using specialized privileges utilizing proprietary trade secrets it refused to share with other publishers of other applications, and made Internet Explorer the default application other applications called to the detriment of their own Customers. At the time, the also deliberately crippled the other similar applications for their own benefit. This was indeed ruled anti-competitive.
Apple is a hardware maker and seller that provides an application market that includes a reasonable cost end-to-end point-of-sale distribution and money and taxation handling service that is among the lowest cost in the industry while maintains a secure source of malware free content and applications to its users.
Apple has provided this system which has worked securely for almost 20 years while Apple has consistently reduced costs of that system to developers and publishers over that time and returned to them up to 85% of the revenues collected. Meanwhile, the percentage that Apple does retain allows these developers and publishers access to a marketplace of over 1.5 billion users who spend more money than all of the Android users combined! In addition, it allows these same developers to provide the users with free versions of their applications at zero cost to the developer (free advertising and marketing) to induce them try them out their products and thus upgrade. They want to be able to BYPASS Apple when these free trial users decide to upgrade.
That could end a lot of FREEWARE offered on the App stores if the store hosting it cannot eventually reap the sale of the upgrade. Apple statistics show the App Store contains about 80% free apps. Those are supported by the paid revenues Apple retains. Be careful what you wish for… you might end up killing the golden egg laying goose if you get your way.
You want a malware infested operating system where you buy your apps from untrusted, uncertified sources, don’t buy Apple iOS products. We buy them with the understanding and the intention that we will be buying apps and content from a trusted, certified malware free source. We don’t need someone coming in and kicking down the fences and letting the coyotes in. We don’t want them in. It’s WHY we are willing to pay a premium price for the devices… for the security and (LISTEN UP, TIM COOK!) the privacy!
We don’t give a damn about chasing a bargain price or finding an operating system tweak to pretty up the screen. We want SECURITY and PRIVACY (listen good, TIM COOK!) and that includes a secure, fraud free purchasing system!
Apple has won our trust but could lose it very fast with ill advised decisions such as deciding to search our devices for data, even for "good reasons," because who gets to decide what "good reasons" things gets searched for the next time, and there is always a next time once you start. That sliding slope is very slippery and only gets more slippery.
Keep security and privacy binary. We either have them or we don’t. There’s no middle ground.
Apple’s payment system has been remarkably free of fraud, even though it has, by far, more credit/debit cards recorded in Apple’s database than any other payment system in the world. It’s why Apple was able to get thousands of banks worldwide to agree to adopt ApplePay. Adding more payment options to the Apple ecosystem by judicial fiat is a sliding and slippery slope fraught with opportunities for fraud.
If you want that option, buy an Android phone.
The people who opt to buy IPhones for a premium price do so with the knowledge they want to buy their apps THROUGH the curated Apple App Store, not from some third-party malware infested app source. China had that with their side loading iPhone app stores. They were loaded with malware. Of the 10,000 or so hacked copies of commercial apps you could buy on the unofficial app stores a bargain prices, something like 4500 had malware and even Ransomware loaded in them! Thank you, we will pass!
Four of those actually got submitted by hackers masquerading as the developers and up loaded to the official Apple Chinese App Store and made it through the curation process before finally being caught by the real developers after being downloaded and getting their users’ devices infected. That is an example of why your idea is bad.
Tim Cook wins Victory Royale over Epic Games
September 10, 2021
Tailosive Tech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uISxMEfZ4U
There is no reason to believe that a divested, independent app store(s) would have lower quality control. In fact, they would have maximum incentive to triple-check the apps against malware and spyware etc.
No, you fail to grasp what else the App Store does. Apple also aides the developers by developing the APIs that interface the hardware, operating system with the apps. It is impossible to do that without being part of the development of the hardware and hardware from the beginning. If Apple were divested from the App Store, then any other competitor app stores would demand equal access to Apple hardware, deep OS, deep API necessary for their success and any of their development to assure what you want. Apple would have to reveal security secrets that would compromise exactly what should NOT be compromised about the OS security models and methods.
There is a reason why Android Apps from independent app stores ARE lower quality than iOS apps. It’s because your assumption and assertion is wrong. That model has been tried and found wanting. The number of NEW Android malware identified per month in 2020 was approximately 530,000 or almost 7 million per year. On the other hand, Malwarebytes reported that in 2020, iOS had very few malware issues:
"On the iOS side, malware exists, but there’s no way to scan for it. Most iOS malware is nation-state malware, spread via targeted attacks through iOS vulnerabilities, such as NSO’s Pegasus spyware. It was learned this year that China had gotten in on the action as well, using iOS zero-days to infect phones in a targeted attack against the Uyghur people."
Malwarebytes went on to report that a deep seated boot ROM hardware vulnerability in iOS devices from iPhone 4 through iPhoneX, which cannot be patched, was discovered in late 2020 that could compromise a physically possessed iPhone, but it would require sophisticated equipment to accomplish. In addition, by the time of the vulnerability’s discovery, only about 5% of iPhones in the wild with that boot ROM were still in use as most users had upgraded to newer models using a later bootROM that lacked that vulnerability.
It was pointed out that the vertical integration of Apple’s App Store business model maintains this low level of malware intrusion.
So your thesis is contrary to reality. Empirical evidence in the real world does not support your wishful thinking.
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