If a developer doesn't like Unreal's terms, there are other game engines.

If a developer doesn't like Apple's terms, there are no viable alternatives for iOS distribution.

I think a more apt comparison would be... If a developer doesn't like Xbox's terms, there are other gaming platforms...

Game console to General computing device isn't exactly apples to apples. But yes, It'd be great if users could install unsigned apps on all the devices they own.

If by great you mean "great for malware makers" I guess so. HN has a big problem of pushing for changes hat benefit highly tech-literate people but in reality the majority of the market needs signed apps so they don't download harmful programs.

I think people need to stop looking at their own immediate interests and start considering long term aspects of things. You can't just throw out technology now without understanding how it empowers bad actors, because it amplifies them too.

Perhaps if running unsigned apps became more widespread, businesses will spring up in the space to offer secure, curated apps as third-party app stores.

Desktop software, for a long time, did not have the notion of specialized app stores or enforcing signed programs. Yes, Windows has loads of security issues. But surely this can be a problem that can be solved over time?

> Perhaps if running unsigned apps became more widespread, businesses will spring up in the space to offer secure, curated apps as third-party app stores.

They should go ahead and do that, then make an OS and mobile devices built around their store, so I have an option other than iOS devices when I want someone in my life who's not a tech nerd to have a reasonably safe and usable computing experience that's still very robust and doesn't require any work on my part. That would be competition and improved consumer choice.

I want more options that deliver the experience Apple does (or better! Please!) rather than fewer. That's the choice I want. I've got tons of only-nerds-can-use-them-safely computing options. I don't need more of those.

Why would John Q. Public trust a third party over the manufacturer of their device?

Why would anyone want to download Firefox or Chrome when you can just surf with IE?

Microsoft didn't make the computer, and has no incentive to ensure a high quality UX.

Apple cares about their hardware customers and fosters a well-earned trust. The AppStore rules are a huge part of the foundation of that trust.

But Microsoft made the OS, hence why shouldn’t the user trust their neatly-integrated browser? The analogy still holds.

Apple is a hardware company that wants to ensure the best possible UX for their customers, and does so by vetting the software that gets installed on their hardware products.

What's Microsoft's parallel motivation in your analogy?

So you're saying that a software company that makes operating systems, and has the incentive to want programs that run well on the said OS, has no interest in wanting its users to be locked into the browser they also make?

A game console is not general purpose computing device?

I will disagree with dathinab and say of course gaming consoles are general purpose computing devices.

But they are general purpose computing devices with built-in malware that makes the device only useful for the types of computing the seller wants you to do with the device. And that's gaming, of course

Yes it only runs games (and maybe multimedia).

Phone run everything from games over office apps to unlocking you apartment doors or handling the check-in at a hotel (yes some hotels have app based check-in).

(And in the end Apps is just a handy short form of Application, so you could say even the name kinda implicates this ;=) )

That's a software limitation, not a hardware limitation. An iPhone is also a general purpose computer that is limited (to a lesser extent ) by the software.

Sure what they have in common is:

- A general purpose hardware with specific less general purpose hardware extensions.

Where they differ:

- By default allowing "mostly" any legal kind of software, but then putting absurd constraints on it.

- By default only allowing games and some multimedia and maybe then putting absurd constraints on it (maybe because idk tbh).

I.e. even with apples constraints iOs operates as a general purpose platform while XBox/PS5/Switch do not.

The Xbox allows side loading. Not sure about PS.

But there are other Smartphone platforms with their own store, correct?

I don’t know why people feel it’s their undeniable right to be able to provide an app to iOS users.

It's not an "undeniable right" but it's also not like there are a lot of other options. You can say "just move to another platform" or "then make your own platform" but you also have to be a realist.

This is why antitrust laws exist - sometimes the market realities make this nearly impossible.

But where is the line of lots of options vs not a lot of options? iOS isn't even the most popular mobile operating system.

For some market it is. Our users were 80%+ on ios

Seems to me the biggest hurdle to moving/finding customers via the Google/Android platform is that they won't spend money over there.

The feature/capability parity between the platforms means they are, in fact, both capable of serving these markets. But people want to vote with their dollars in the iOS ecosystem, and now the players want to change that ecosystem.

I'm not entirely convinced that this is Apple's problem, in as much as it is Google's fault for not fostering a properly competitive revenue delivery platform, even though it has the maturity and standing to do so.

But does that matter when they have milions of people in that marked. Isn't that a size where it really shouldn't matter anymore if there is another similar bigger marked?

Also for some serivces iOs users are the large majority, like more or less any "real premium" service (Like apps you have to pay 10 or so+$ a month or 100+$ when buying them).

It's handled case-by-case, that's the point of the legislative oversight system.

It’s no more realistic to say “if you don’t like the licensing terms of your game engine then just rewrite your game.”

End-customers are not locked into a specific game engine in any way, whereas mobile ecosystems have lock-in through devices and already-bought apps. That's a major difference for a software maker.

It's a LOT more realistic to rewrite your game than it is to tell all of your iOS customers that they have to jailbreak or switch platforms.

> This is why antitrust laws exist

Anti trust laws (or competition laws) tend to apply to players with an clear control over the market, monopolies that stifle competition. Apple has ~14% of the mobile market, compared to Android's ~86%. I'm curious about how this will play out as it might have an impact in other sectors where smaller players by market share exercise a bit too tight control.

Is that the global figure? It's much more than that for US, almost 60% actually: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-sta... , for example.

Don't know about tablets, but I feel it's not different.

Google Search should be free to only show location results from Google Maps, and ban Yelp, etc.. entirely from Google Search. After all, there's other search engines, right?

There is a history here where using your market position in one area to force your product in another as being illegal (see the recent EU fine against Google for "abusing their Android monopoly" for example: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_18_... ). Apple seems to be crossing that line rather brazenly.

Isn’t it the other way around that iOS users should be able to shop in competing stores for their apps?

It’s just very few users have any real ability to affect that sort of change.

I wouldn’t be opposed to this but Apple could make a case that using a competing app store voids warranty or care because they can no longer guarantee the software is ‘safe’ for iOS.

General computing platforms, in which you can run arbitrary unsigned code without violating the warranty, exist. In fact, Apple has a major business in manufacturing them (MacBook, etc.)

This could fly for iPad, the iPhone they can make a case it jeopardizes the reliability in contacting emergency services.

Overall this will go over most law makers heads because they are technically incompetent.

To a degree they could (although it'd be quite embarrassing for Apple to claim that their OS can't prevent apps from damaging phones), it could be somewhat similar to how Android manufacturers sometimes handle custom ROMs by having the unlock set a permanent flag somewhere. Doesn't necessarily give them an out of legally required warranties.

Yes, which is why they should be mandated by law to include them anyway. Maybe that will force them to figure out a better security strategy.

I don’t think our current law makers are technically competent enough to understand this.

In a theoretical anti-trust investigation wouldn’t that been seen as extremely anti-competitive?

It's about monopolization. Should a company be able to vertically integrate and install a toll booth to profit off of all developers on their platform? Or does that hurt consumers more than it would hurt businesses to separate that power?

It's not perfect but what else can we do?

- Yes, every shmuck who buys only iOS cause Apple is the status symbol undermines everyone's ability to choose. But we'd need a consumer union to go after these monopoly-aiders as scabs. Ha ha ha not going to happen.

- All the other hardware manufactures are so shitty and quality control and integration that they are also responsible. Do we wait for Moon's party to break up Samsung so Apple gets more competition? Tell Taiwan to break up TMSC or do more direct-to-consumer?

Fundamentally we have the perfect storm of outsourcing and low quality, precarious Americans looking for status, and nationally-tinged monpolies. The idea solutions are just out of reach in the short term, so I support putting iOS on a stupid pedestal to break up Apple's exclusionary vertical integration.

Because for many applications it's not viable to not provide service for iOs users, which is sad but true.

Consider you not being able to:

- buy train tickets under iOs

- check-in into a hotel under iOs

- do video conferences

- chat with your friend

- cross play with your friends

- open your apartment doors

- check your health data

- do online banking

- securely check your email

- do Ueber, Rbnb, etc.

- buy at Amazone

- etc.

Sure many (but not all) things might be doable over web interface but this crates often much more frictions and due to constraints put onto web interfaces and PWS also has often much worse UX, not providing service for millions of iOs users is often deadly and providing competitively shitty service isn't anygood either, even worse if you have to compete with Apple itself which gives there apps unfair advantages beyond not needing to pay the 30% cut.

Let's be honest any marked which covers millions of people should be handled as a standalone marked even if you could argue it's just part of a bigger marked by any government or you fail your people (and the free marked idea IMHO, but reasoning about this is tricky as it involves considering how the marked dynamics have fundamentally changed and how thinks which would have worked in benefit for the population don't work anymore in the current times and therefore how the marked (laws) has to adapt to it).

It should be an undeniable right that I can use other app stores with my iOS device.

> I don’t know why people feel it’s their undeniable right to be able to provide an app to iOS users.

If Apple is using its market power to increase profit at the expense of reducing selection and/or increasing prices for consumers, then that's a very serious problem. It's exactly the reason antitrust laws exist.

> But there are other Smartphone platforms with their own store, correct?

But are they competing or parallel markets? Does Apple changing pricing or terms on the App Store drive business to other app stores, as replacements, or do software vendors choose which app stores to distribute with based on whether each provides a benefit worth the price, but not whether it is a better deal than some other store?

I think that under market/pricing power tests, Apple’s software distribution business in the App Store is not that unlikely to be a monopoly.

Now, establishing consumer harms from the way the leverage that monopoly to extract rents and dictate terms to software vendors might be less straightforward than it would be for a B2C monopoly, and in the US, at least, consumer harm is the key adverse impact from monopoly abuse that justifies legal consequences.

> I don’t know why people feel it’s their undeniable right to be able to provide an app to iOS users.

Rephrased:

> I don't know why people feel it's their undeniable right to install the apps they want on iOS.

iOS is the market leader by profit share and by amount of money spent on app stores, as Apple fans like to talk about all the time. In a sane world, being a market leader would mean that shareholder and corporate interests are kept in check by society.

Most people don't have more than one phone. Phones are used for more than gaming. If a developer doesn't like Apple's terms, they can't distribute on iOS, except through a web app.

Perhaps PWA+WebGPU will solve this.

Except you're still locked into Apple's webview, thanks to their policy of disallowing other rendering engines. PWAs on iOS will only ever work as well as Apple allows them to.

> If a developer doesn't like Apple's terms, there are no viable alternatives for iOS distribution.

Lots of opportunities for mobile distribution though. Apple is what, < 20% of the mobile market? (I know where you're coming from, but this is what Apple's legal team will say).

Apple is also very proud of being a a lot larger share of the mobile apps/content market, which is what everyone elses legal team will say. (And which is why this is actually such a big thing: if loosing iOS customers meant loosing <20% of revenue, app makers would be a lot less fussed about this)

You are missing:

.. not covering the iOS marked is for some products not viable and might literally lead to insolvency in the long run.

Today you can tell people that you don't provide a game on e.g. X Box and they might not like but accept it. But you can not tell people that their premium mail service has no iOs app or that they team meating software has no iOs app or that their <insert any software covering a group of people> app doesn't work on iOs.

Tbh. it's probably somewhat true for tipple A massive multiplayer games and games consoles, too.

In this case alternate platform is android, PC, consoles

It's a false dichotomy; the correct comparison is:

If a developer doesn't like Apple's terms, there are other phone platforms.

No, that’s not a correct comparison. Consumers don’t buy a device from Epic in order to run Unreal engine games. Consumers don’t care at all what engine a game runs on, they only care about the game itself (and what platform it’s available on).

If you forgo the iOS platform, you lose out on the vast majority of mobile app revenue. Android may have greater market share than Apple but iOS dominates the market among people who actually buy apps (mostly affluent people in western countries).

If you’re not published on Apple’s App Store then you can’t reach a huge segment of the market that would like to use your product. I don’t think Apple, Google, etc. , should be the gatekeepers between a developer and their customers.

They're not. That's the whole point. These are Apple's customers since they're finding the app in the App Store. Epic has other customers that play Fortnite that are not Apple customers.

No, there is one other phone platform.

Okay, but imagine that Fortnite used Unreal but wasn’t created by the creators of Unreal. Do you think that Fortnite would be more comfortable playing chicken with the App Store and risking getting banned like this, or playing chicken with the game engine that their entire game is implemented with? In practice I would say a game engine has more leverage over a game developer than a single distribution platform.

If Unreal were the problem, Fortnite could have chosen a different game engine at the start (this is not about terms changing after all) and it would not affect their options to sell to customers. And while porting would be expensive, it would be possible without loosing access to customers. Nobody doesn't buy a game because they bought an unreal-only PC somewhere.

> Fortnite could have chosen a different game engine at the start (this is not about terms changing after all)

Right. Apple's terms were clear from the start, so Fortnite had no reasonable expectation to be allowed to violate them. Just like Fortnite could have chosen to use a different game engine if they didn't like the terms of a particular game engine, they could choose to focus on non-Apple platforms (or choose to abide by Apple's terms on Apple's platform) if they don't like Apple's terms. I'm not sure what you're getting at.

> and it would not affect their options to sell to customers [...] it would be possible without loosing access to customers. Nobody doesn't buy a game because they bought an unreal-only PC somewhere.

Which is why the game engine comparison is a bad one.

Epic only takes a cut when revenue exceeds one million dollars and then only 5% which is considerably less than 30% on every transaction.

I don’t think Epic are against fees so much as against ones as high as in the App Store.

The Unreal Engine license is like Epic giving you a toolbox for no upfront cost, but charging you 5% of whatever revenue you generate selling goods made using the toolbox.

The App store comission is like Apple charging you 30% anytime you sell one of those goods to someone who lives in an Apple branded house. (To complete the analogy, maybe you're a door to door salesman and Apple charges you a "sidewalk usage fee" or something)

One (Unreal Engine) is a licensing agreement for a tool with no upfront cost; the other is a tax on any sale made to an end user.

How is the apple app store and development kit etc etc not a toolbox? Granted 30% is a ridiculous cut.

You can switch toolboxes. You can't switch app stores.

That's right, but the basis of comparison is different.

Apple has a monopoly on 1/2 of Smartphones users in the US, Android the other.

This is a totally different scenario that 'choosing component vendors'.

Absolutely, it wasn’t my comparison. That Apple has a monopoly and uses it to charge egregious fees is something I’m absolutely behind Epic in fighting.

It's not even remotely the same. They don't require you to distribute on the epic store. Moreover you don't owe them a penny for using the game engine until lifetime gross revenues exceed $1MM.

> Doesn’t Epic take a cut out of every single purchase made of a game built with Unreal Engine?

Only those that make >$1mil lifetime gross.

Note that $1mil lifetime revenue is a very low boundary. A very small consulting operation of 2 or 3 people could easily hit that in a year or two. A single freelancer could probably hit it in 4 or 5 years. It's easy to read "a million dollars!" And think "we're rich!", but running any business has a lot of overhead.

The limit is $1 million per app. How many games make more than $1 million throughout their lifetime? 99% of developers won't ever have a game earning that much.

At the same time, 99% of game revenue probably comes from games grossing more than $1m.

What does consulting have to do with games?

30% is extremely high by any reasonable standard for any marketplace

FWIW brick and mortar stores usually take 40%.

Doesn't seem a fair comparison given the far more substantial costs of brick and mortar. Brick and mortar retailers do not, traditionally, have very large margins when all is said and done, whereas I think the App Store has quite significant margins for Apple.

Dumb question, but why is a vendor's cost a relevant input to evaluate fairness? Isn't a common theme around here to price based on value, not on cost?

Last I looked, Apples gross services margins were around 66%, which implies a break even for the store at a 10% fee.

I think Apples service margins include an unspecified amount from Google for being the default search engine on iOS.

And that’s a big fraction of their services. https://www.thestreet.com/investing/google-pays-apple-billio... estimates that at $9.48 billion over 2018.

That implies that App Store margins are lower than I estimated, and it’s costs higher.

I used to work stock at a bunch of retail stores for a decade and could see what percentage the markup was. It was almost never above 20%, and usually closer to 3-5%.

Back when CompUSA/Circuit City were where most people bought software, it was more like 50-60%.

The infrastructure cost is 100000x than that for the storage and network of one file.

Downloadable is nominal outside of store. I had millions of downloads back in 2005 timeframe and we never even looked at file hosting cost.

Brick-and-mortar stores provide useful services and have high costs. Neither applies to the Apple App Store in this case.

not sure what the brick and mortar equivalent is. what does that mean?

retailers pay suppliers some wholesale cost for their goods. doesn’t seem like an analogous situation to a marketplace that takes a fixed cut of every sale.

In the olden days of game stores shelf space was at a premium so the power dynamic was on the side of the retailer, particularly with the larger chains who had a lot of room to negotiate their cut rather than buying wholesale.

If the wholesale cost is too close to MSRP, retailers will generally either refuse to carry the product or sell it above MSRP.

It’s so strange to me that after all this time they’re sticking with the high fee. The App Store is a major feature of the iOS platform and Apple benefits greatly from a healthy app ecosystem and user lock in. I would argue the 30% fee may not be a net gain for Apple.

Doesn't like every online "platform" take 30% cut? Google play, playstation store, steam, xbox store, nintendo store?

Epic Games Store is 12%: https://www.polygon.com/2018/12/4/18125498/epic-games-store-...

Steam changed a while back: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/30/18120577/valve-steam-gam...

It's now 30% for the first $10 million, 25% for $10-$50 million, and 20% thereafter.

Also relevant here would be Epic Games Store, which is 12%. Also relevant here, is payment processors are way, way less than 30%, which is all that's used/needed for in-app purchases.

Paynent processors are entirely irrelevant to this discussion, given app stores do far more than just payment processing.

Given publicly reported financials for Apples services gross margins imply a break even around 10%, I doubt any successful App Store offering similar services could survive on less than 15%.

> Paynent processors are entirely irrelevant to this discussion, given app stores do far more than just payment processing.

Not for in-app purchases they don't, which is why I specifically called that one out. The game provides all the UX there to find & purchase the items, the game "delivers" the resulting purchased goods, etc... All the app store does in that case is facilitate payment. No different than, say, Square.

The store facilitates discovery of your app, secure installation of your app, world wide distribution of your app, and offers customers a safe, trustworthy, consistent and easy to use purchasing system complete with refunds, subscriptions cancellation for all purchases.

One of the biggest developer benefits is Apples app reviews process. While not perfect for devs, it helps ensure customers feel safe buying my apps free of the risk of viruses, malware, and fraud ware. That sells more of my apps.

If you don’t understand these things, you don’t understand your customers.

I'm sure Epic would be willing to forgo all those things, if they could have iOS visitors to their own site click a download button, up pops the ol' install app OS dialog (same as now), face ID / passcode, bam, Fortnite is installed.

Of course they would but that’s parasitical. That’s how iOS turns into the Android dumpster fire.

You can avoid Google Play on Android by sideloading. You can avoid Steam on PC by distributing your game yourself. You can't avoid the App Store on iOS unless you tell all of your customers to jailbreak.

bad argument since Apple set the precedent and everyone else followed.

Apple set a new lower precedent versus J2ME, Symbian, ringtone app stores.

Negative on that. See Sony, MS, Nintendo gaming consoles.

On the contrary, it is quite low versus what previous app stores for J2ME, Symbian, ringtones used to charge for.

Apple's AppStore is a distribution channel.

Taking a 30% cut of all future revenue from the game just because they established the initial install is waylaying!

Unreal Engine provides a lot more value to game developers than the App Store does as an app distribution platform.

Businesses don’t make money by worrying about morality or worrying about hypocrisy.

They certainly can, if indirectly.

Edit: "do" -> "can"

A much smaller cut in a much more open market.

Maybe when you have a product anyone wants, you can decide what metagame to use to get it distributed.

Businesses don’t exist to define a moral compass. They exist to make money. Any large and successful company will happily play the “do as I say and not as I do” card as often as they think they’ll get away with it.

I’m not saying it’s right but it’s pointless being shocked by the hypocrisy of the logic that businesses are run by.

Businesses are legal fictions. There is no inherent reason shareholders should be the only constituency businesses serve.

There’s plenty of businesses that aren’t just motivated by profit. However the businesses that rise to the top are obviously going to be those who are more aggressively profit driven. This is why my previous comment made a distinction about company size rather than making a blanket statement about all companies.

If it were made impossible for businesses to be solely profit driven, then there would simply no longer exist any businesses that are solely profit driven.

Okay sovereign citizen. Have fun living in your fantasy world

Far from it, I'm thinking more in terms of Liz Warren's Accountable Capitalism Act: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accountable_Capitalism_Act

Ah okay this at least makes some sense.

I don't know how effective something like this would be, wouldn't this just incentivize hiring people that fit your political agenda?

For instance let's say you hire a bunch of Chinese/Indian immigrants on H-1B visas, they'll just vote in people that benefit China/India

Also the 1997-2011 era Apple probably wouldn't have worked under a law like this

> I don't know how effective something like this would be, wouldn't this just incentivize hiring people that fit your political agenda?

That's what all companies already do: the political agenda of every publicly held large company today is to please its shareholders, and only to please its shareholders. The proposal changes the political agendas of large companies so that they also have to please their workers and communities.

> For instance let's say you hire a bunch of Chinese/Indian immigrants on H-1B visas, they'll just vote in people that benefit China/India

Kind of a pessimistic view of humanity there. Immigrants are just as good as native-born citizens at collectively deciding what's best for the organization they work in.

> Also the 1997-2011 era Apple probably wouldn't have worked under a law like this

Apple would certainly be different, but so would its competition.