You would think so, but actually a company can't sue another for antitrust violations unless they show evidence that they were injured — and the injury has to pass a two-prong test [1] to be covered.

That being said, the government can investigate without a lawsuit. But just because the government investigates, that doesn't guarantee the government will prosecute; a lawsuit guarantees prosecution, unless it's so baseless it gets thrown out by the court (which Epic's hasn't been).

Hence why Epic took a step that would obviously result in a ban: they needed the correct type of evidence of injury in order to sue.

1: https://www.businessjustice.com/the-elements-of-antitrust-in...

They showed that Apple forcing iOS apps to use their Payment Processor is bad for consumers by providing an alternative that is 20% cheaper. Which is what got them banned.

Every payment and subscription going through Apple is one of the best features for me. Especially the subscriptions.

So why can't Epic (or any other company) provide you that option with a 42% premium (to cover Apple's 30% cut) and allow users to buy direct from them? Then if you wish to trust Apple more with your card details, you can pay more for the privelege. Or you can save some money, but potentially increase your risk by going direct.

I've always hated that Apple seem to think they know better than anyone else; you can't do as you wish on their platforms because you might be stupid.

I mean, that’s exactly why I have an Apple device.

No, wait, not that I’m stupid. Though I’m sure some people would call me that.

It’s that they make the decisions for me. I’m specifically paying a premium to delegate the responsibility for making those decisions to them.

I spent years running Nexus devices (since before they were Nexus... still have my ADP1 in a drawer) on Cyanogenmod and LineageOS. At some point I got busy and didn’t have time for my phone to be a hobby or even a thing I had to think about and chose to delegate those decisions to Apple rather than Google because they generally seem to lean more toward privacy-conscious decisions and making money on hardware and apps rather than decisions to support violating my privacy and making money on advertising.

I already paid more for what I agree is a privilege by buying an expensive Apple phone. If you don’t like the rules, then don’t sell here. I’m cool with that. Leave my walled garden alone. I’m comfortable in here.

But those aren't mutually exclusive. You can stay in the walled garden if you wish, and people who are comfortable with the risk can go outside. Choice; something Apple thinks its users are incapable of making sensibly.

Or, again, many people have made that choice and are fine with the situation. If you don't want the locked down device you can just not buy an Apple device?

And that's your choice, but forcing that onto everyone is anti-competitive.

How is that being forced on everyone? E. g. I do not use Steam, so they can do whatever they want, it would have zero effect on me.

The action that triggered these events is that Epic chose to sell some items at a higher price via the Apple store to cover the 30% "tax" and make it clearer to consumers that they are paying a premium to the middleman, or at a lower price via in-game currency (which could be purchased elsewhere) directly in the game.

Offering this consumer choice is what lead to Fortnite being banned.

Steam isn't manufacturing computers. This is about Apple the computer manufacturer. It's unfair for them to lock their computers/phones down so people can't install software without Apple's permission.

The App Store is more or less a red herring here (relevant only to the 30% fee being too much).

Is it though? There's no legal precedent that would allow for software vendors to force device manufacturers to allow their software to be run on the manufacturer's hardware. Otherwise we'd see Android on iPhones, legally-mandated Facebook integration on everything, custom car firmware etc.

The harm to consumers is the higher price that they have to pay. Epic didn't just keep the 30% all for themselves, they lowered prices.

Of course a competing App Store can offer lower prices, they don't bear any of the costs for developing and managing the iOS ecosystem Apple spent billions over a decade building (that many other companies lost fortunes failing to compete against). They can just popup a virtual store in someone else's successful established platform and access a market of 1B+ credit cards they had no hand in creating where they can dictate their own margins for selling virtual goods - somehow feeling entitled to get a free ride on the massive development & maintenance infrastructure costs that is subsidized by the App Store.

Strange most other markets don't just let everyone to sell their products (physical or virtual) on their markets at no cost [1].

[1] https://www.ign.com/articles/2019/10/07/report-steams-30-cut...

Apple profits handsomely from the iOS ecosystem every time someone buys an iPhone to access it, or buys a Mac because Apple won't allow building iOS apps without one, or pays the annual developer program fee. They don't need to triple or quadruple dip to be the most valuable publicly traded company in the world.

Apple here is no different than the Telcos wanting to avoid only being paid for just being dumb pipes. If everybody else is making money building on that basic service they want a piece of that pie too.

iOS is a major cost to develop that's given away for free, continually invested in, advanced, developed & updated. Apple is allowed to have more than one business model on the platform they built, which was their primary focus that reshaped the company at a great opportunity cost to their other businesses. Ultimately the Company bet paid off & became successful against a number of incumbents who lost fortunes trying to compete in Mobile OS's. The App Store is now one of their major sources of revenue for having built a successful platform (a category they helped pioneer).

The nominal annual fee is a cost for accessing the dev tools only, it's in no way a royalty-free cost to sell products on one of the most lucrative markets in the world - that's what their standard royalty % (unchanged from the outset) covers.

> iOS is a major cost to develop that's given away for free

How is it given for free, you pay for it when you buy the phone.

You dont just get the current OS that's on the phone, but also the upcoming ones for the next 5-6 years[0] for free. A phone bought in 2015 still gets updates.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/eS3ifSC.jpg

And if my iPhone gets updates in 2025, it doesn't change the fact that I paid 1200 euro for it. How much is the raw manufacturing cost of the 11 Pro (256 GB)?

Also, if the App Store revenue is for iOS development, does that mean that people who buy an iPhone and never pay for an app or an IAP are a net loss to Apple?

By that rationale, windows 10 is free too.

All those "free" upgrades are part of the phone when you buy it.

You cannot buy just the hardware without the OS at cheaper cost because its a combined hardware/OS cost.

You're paying for the phone, there is no cost nor can you pay for iOS. The current and all future versions is & always has been free.

It's nonsensical to take a product that can't be purchased in pieces and separate the pieces to call one half free. iOS has always been included but it will never be free.

You're paying for iOS, the phone is free.

Yeah that's right it costs $1249 for each download of iOS (Beta's are 1/2 price), but Apple gives you as many iPhone Max Pro's as you want, mailed along with your free sim! Which doesn't matter if you lose or break out of warranty you can always get a new replacement Free! Family plans are the best, you can install your 1 iOS purchase on 5 free iPhone's - giving free iPhone's away was truly an ingenious revolutionary business model.

Can I just buy the hardware at a cheaper price without the OS, if not then its not free, its part of the total cost.

That's nonsensical, if you could buy the hardware cheaper or iOS separate then you would be paying for iOS, you can't, Apple doesn't sell iOS, it gives it away. The cost for new iOS versions is irrelevant to the cost of hardware it's running on, it's free for all their devices for as long as they meet the hardware requirements for running new versions.

You could buy an iPhone and put a jail break OS on it, you're still paying the full amount for the device.

> it's free for all their devices

Have you never heard the phrase "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch"?

The reason Apple does not sell the hardware at a cheaper cost should tell you that the OS is not free. The cost is included. Its a package deal.

> it's free for all their devices for as long as they meet the hardware requirements for running new versions.

If the OS is free then why not let it run on very old models, it will run very slow but that should not matter since the OS is free, right?

> Have you never heard the phrase "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch"?

Yes, it's a meaningless cliche which is often untrue (I've had many free lunches myself). But "free/gratis" does have a definition to mean "without cost or payment", e.g. how much it costs to acquire/download every version of iOS going back a decade.

Have you ever heard of alternative business models? Try Googling Android, Tizen OS, Web OS, Firefox OS for alternative mobile OS's, it's nearly impossible to for a mobile OS to become mainstream if you had to pay for it.

> If the OS is free then why not let it run on very old models, it will run very slow but that should not matter since the OS is free, right?

Because Apple has to support the devices it says it supports & they don't run acceptably. This isn't new, a lot of commercial software wont support software that doesn't meet a minimum hardware requirement.

> I've had many free lunches myself

So the other part did not want anything from you, what was the purpose of the free lunch then?

Not sure why you are looking at download costs, how about the employee costs who develop IOS.

If you googled those business models you will understand that there is no free lunch, similarly there isnt one with IOS, you pay for it when you buy the device.

> Because Apple has to support the devices it says it supports & they don't run acceptably.

No that is not true, Apple has no problems when IOS does not run "acceptably", infact they make it a feature so that IOS runs slow on older phones so that people will buy new phones to pay for IOS. That is the kind of shady behaviour Apple has to do when IOS is not free.

> what was the purpose of the free lunch then?

A completely irrelevant point, just like this tired cliche.

> Not sure why you are looking at download costs, how about the employee costs who develop IOS.

The cost to the end user is how much it costs them to download/acquire iOS, which is $0, for all versions & updates, previous, current & future. The employee costs is part of the Apple's massive investment into creating & maintaining iOS, an investment they're able recuperate from App Store revenue.

Which is exactly my point, it would've cost Apple billions to develop & maintain iOS over its lifetime yet they give it away for free because they're able to collect revenue for alternative revenue streams such as the App Store.

> If you googled those business models you will understand that there is no free lunch, similarly there isnt one with IOS, you pay for it when you buy the device.

Your forced cliche keeps failing. Android like iOS doesn't have a price because there isn't one, there is $0 cost to the end user, maintaining an ubiquitous dominant mobile OS generates incomes through alternative revenue sources - shouldn't be a surprise to anyone they both have App Stores that generates revenue from the same standard Royalty %.

> Apple has no problems when IOS does not run "acceptably"

Of course they do, they care deeply about UX and maintaining high Customer satisfaction & Brand value which is always at industry highs, they'll never throw a link to new OS's and say we don't support & have never tested this on legacy hardware older than 5 years, but feel free to try installing the latest software on inadequate devices yourself - it may not run & may brick your device, but we don't care because it's years out of warranty so it's no longer our problem! No, just like their other OS's they'll enforce the minimum hardware it can run adequately on.

> infact they make it a feature so that IOS runs slow on older phones so that people will buy new phones to pay for IOS.

Not only are your cliches bad, but so are your debunked conspiracy theories! Also you can't pay for iOS.

> A completely irrelevant point, just like this tired cliche.

Then what was the point of bringing that irrelevant point?

>they're able to collect revenue for alternative revenue streams such as the App Store.

Did Apple tell you that, can you give some sources for your claims. They might be doing that but also pass the cost to the user when the user purchases the device.

> The cost to the end user is how much it costs them to download/acquire iOS, which is $0

And we are back to the starting position, show me where can I buy Apple hardware without the OS, if you cannot show me that then you cannot say IOS is free, the cost is included in the device price.

> maintaining high Customer satisfaction

Then why did they intentionally make old devices run very slow?

Has it ever occurred to you that they did that intentionally to force users to upgrade so that they can get new revenue for IOS and the hardware?

> Also you can't pay for iOS.

Yes because the price is included in the hardware.

>You could buy an iPhone and put a jail break OS on it, you're still paying the full amount for the device.

If I buy a new TV and throw the remote in the trash, the remote was not part of the cost of the TV?

Also, "jail break OS"? Isn't that just iOS?

> If I buy a new TV and throw the remote in the trash, the remote was not part of the cost of the TV?

A hardware remote is, which has an actual per unit cost (a software remote wouldn't be). The cost of Software distribution is effectively $0, a valid comparison would be if you bought your new TV with Android (which costs $0 for the manufacturer to include) you could replace the TV OS with Tizen OS which is also free, neither OS costs anything to the manufacturer or consumer and you don't get it cheaper for purchasing the same TV without an OS.

> Also, "jail break OS"? Isn't that just iOS?

There used to be a healthy alt OS ecosystem for iPhone before newer iPhone's have become increasingly lockdown where it doesn't appear you can do that anymore, the best you can do is JailBreak iOS and install a custom package manager and install custom software not permitted on the App Store.

> iOS is a major cost to develop that's given away for free

Are you sure it's free? The only way to buy ios, is to buy a device running it. It would seem reasonable that part of the premium you pay for eg an iPad is equivalent to an oem license for ios?

Of course they lowered the prices.

It was a PR exercise to show the world the wondrous benefits of a potential Epic Games Store on iPhone/Android.

And of course once they had such a store they pinky promise to never increase the prices in the future.

I think the point is that competition will prevent them from doing that. And it worked: in response to Epic's lower rates, Steam also cut their rates. If Epic raises the rate to 30% they'll be more expensive than Steam, and won't be able to compete.

I just checked and Fornite is not available on Steam.

So all that will happen is that certain games will exist only in one store and not be subject to competition.

Or they will secretly sell your data to third parties which Apple won't do.

Fortnite is not required to be on Steam for there to be competition in the game store marketplace. As a game developer on PC, if you don't like Valve, you can switch to Epic, regardless of whether Fortnite is there or not — and Valve has no policies prohibiting you from doing so if you want to (unlike iOS, where Apple prohibits alternate game stores). You might sell fewer games because it's less popular, but that's not due to any anticompetitive action on Valve's part — and it may not matter that you sell fewer games, because Epic may pay you enough for exclusivity that you make up the difference anyway. The "injury" that Epic is trying to prove with Apple is that game developers are injured by lost sales due to Apple's policies, or lost revenue due to Apple's cut, and that this is due to Apple's anticompetitive policies that (literally do) prohibit competing stores from existing and offering developers an alternative. Game developers are not injured — at least, not in the terms usually used in antitrust cases — by Fortnite only existing on the Epic store and not on Steam.

You might argue that consumers are somehow injured by Fortnite existing on the Epic store but not on Steam. But I think that's pretty hard to prove, at least under existing antitrust law: Fortnite is free, and its microtransactions are not particularly more expensive than competitors, and if you don't want to play Fortnite because you don't like the Epic store for some reason, there are dozens of competing battle royale shooters on every platform Fortnite runs on (and, now, even platforms Fortnite doesn't run on). Where is the lack of competition? Or the injury?

Epic's case centers on injury not to consumers, but to developers. That case is easier to make, and it's the case they care about because they operate a game store that doesn't exist on iOS due to Apple's policies — and a game engine business that operates on a 5% revenue share model, which naturally would increase its profits if Apple stopped taking a 30% tithe from developer revenues in the first place. They're perfectly willing to sacrifice Fortnite Mobile, a comparatively small amount of revenue, temporarily if it gets their other business streams more income in the future.

I think they were referring to the percentage taken when processing sales for other developers on the Epic Games Store and Steam.

They lowered prices as part of a calculated stunt. If Apple is suddenly turning over 20% of the purchase price to devs, why would the devs lower the price when they're getting an extra 20% at the same price point?

This is the correct take. Generally speaking, the prices set by Epic before this stunt likely approximated the highest price which didn't reduce aggregate spending.