cm0002Epic's Tim Sweeney declares "the long national nightmare of the Apple tax is ended" as appeals court officially denies Apple's emergency motion
aceslipStill fees in the Epic Games Store, Tim?
Epic Games store isn’t the only way you can download software on Windows, so it’s not really a fair comparisons.
A healthy iOS app economy relies on competing app stores.
I’m not really sure how that would work. iOS has always been a closed system with apps needed to go through the store. The one store. And it’s thrived.
Yes you can make the argument about jailbreaking to sideload etc. but realistically it was an os designed to have a single point of entry. I’m all for abandoning fees and more source options but this is not the way to that. Nor does this help completion or open up other avenues for a competing App Store. And let’s be honest, getting into the Apple ecosystem, you should already be aware of its limitations.
It’s does give Tim Sweeney a hardon thinking he’s a winner.
Just because iOS has always been exclusive doesn’t mean that’s a good thing. If you don’t want to use other stores, that should be your choice as a user or an IT dept, not the manufacturer’s.
And yeah, the article is about payment systems, and the same applies. If I don’t want to use Apple’s payment system as a dev, I should be free to choose a competitor. If I want to provide the choice of multiple payment options to the user, again, I should have that option.
I dislike Epic Games as well because of their exclusivity deals. If I want to buy a game on another store, I should be able to make that choice, and game devs should be able to sell it on multiple platforms.
Okay. One question.
Why would company A need to accomodate any other “app store” in their product, especially if one of their product’s selling point is how streamlined it is? I am not even talking about apple but in general, alas even in their case - they made it clear how it works. People accepted it and bought their product. It doesn’t hurt anyone, and they are not the only player either. So why attack them now? On what basis?
Whether they made it clear isn’t really the issue, the issue is two-fold:
- is it anti-competitive? If so, it’s an anti-trust issue
- what does the user get in return? For a contract to be valid, it needs to benefit both parties
I answered the first below, so I’ll focus on the second here.
It doesn’t hurt anyone
Not having options always hurts competition, and that hurts the consumer.
For me, it comes down to the idea of ownership. Do you really own your device if you can’t install what you want on it? Do you really own your app if you can’t pick the payment processors you want to support?
I get the value in being able to lock your device down and block payment processors you don’t trust, but that should be up to the user or the IT dept at your org. To truly own your device you need to be able to make those choices.
Here’s what I think is reasonable:
- Apple requires apps to include Apple Pay (or whatever) as a payment processor if they release through the App Store
- devices ship “locked down” by default, with the option to allow third party app stores if the user chooses; this should be presented as an option on first boot or if the options there changes
- Apple should not be able to force app devs to use a particular payment processor for in-app purchases, though Apple can deny an app for not charging enough at purchase time
To me, that sounds competitive, respects the idea of ownership, and still gives Apple the high likelihood of continuing to make money hand over fist because most people won’t change the default.