The reality of the legal system is that all small companies would just get worn out and forced to settle against Apple, regardless of the justice of their complaint.

No company smaller than Epic could afford to file such a case. I wonder whether any company could become large enough without having some way for people to argue that "it is not the general this particular battle needs".

Sure, Epic's size is absolutely going to be helpful here. But there are other larger companies that could probably make better cases against Apple if they chose to: Amazon and Microsoft come to mind immediately, with Facebook a possibility given the events of just the last couple of days.

I'm not saying Epic is a bad poster child for this case because Epic is a sleazy company (although from all accounts they kind of are); I'm saying they're a bad poster child because their battle is running up a steeper grade.

Are they arguing that Apple's policies make it impossible for them to split money with authors at the same rate on ebooks? No. How about the policies making it impossible for them to give 100% of event ticket sales to their users and impossible for them to even tell users they'll make less money when people buy tickets on iOS? Nope. Maybe they make it impossible for them to put a client for a streaming game service, period, full-stop, even if Apple got a cut of the money? Negatory.

What does Apple's policies make it impossible for Epic to do, then? Get a higher cut of the revenue from Fortnite's game currency when it's bought on iOS. That's what got their developer account terminated. This is the stand they're taking, the flag they have planted, the hill they are ready to die on: that 70% gross profit on zero marginal cost virtual tchotchkes isn't enough.[1]

Maybe this case will be successful, but my suspicion is that if Apple changes their position, it's going to be either due to regulatory pressure or the ever-increasing weight of the rolling PR disaster they're getting themselves into.

[1] Edited to add: As I wrote, I think it's ultimately about them wanting Apple to be forced to allow the Epic Games Store to be installed on iOS through the Apple App Store, but the case they're bringing is still about Fortnite.

I agree with most of your points. The one question I'd like to return, however, in response to your 70% question is this: does apple deserve 30% of all developer income? That seems steep. I think the 70 % argument is a bit of a red herring. If you think that virtually cost free products should cost less, that's a different argument. But once the price is set, why should get apple nearly a third of it? If anything, lower cuts could result in lower overall prices.

> Does Apple deserve 30% of all developer income?

That's the (literally) billion dollar question, right? Just with a bunch of other questions embedded in it: even if a 30% cut was okay in 2007, is it still in 2020? Aren't there a whole lot of different kinds of in-app purchases? What about subscriptions? Even if you still buy Apple's argument that the App Store isn't just a payment processor and should get more of a cut because of that, aren't there clear cases of in-app purchases where they literally are just a payment processor? I'm skeptical of the strength of Epic's particular case, but I definitely don't want to come across like I think Apple has been showering themselves in glory here. :)

When have ever you seen a price that is based on what someone deserves? In charity only.

In business it never was a case, and why should it be?

Well, clearly it’s profitable enough because companies bend over backwards to launch on iOS.

And Apple doesn’t “deserve” anything anymore than any company deserve anything. Apple built the iOS and iPhone platform, so they can charge based on that.

> ...lower cuts could result in lower prices

I’m not confident that if Apple stopped taking a cut that companies would lower prices.

Sure, but that's because there's no alternative. If you want users to see your app you have to use the system. That doesn't make it right though.

As for your second point, fair, but at least then we could blame them for being money hungry.

Sure there is. You can play the game on PC, Xbox, Switch, Android, etc.

If you want users to see the app you also have to use the iOS system on iPhone. You have to rely on Apple to build GPUs to process your game effectively. Why is the App Store treated so specially?

Imagine if Microsoft would charge for every application that you buy and install? People would shout and scream about monopoly.

If you want to charge people to use your platform there are other methods, e.g. developer licenses.

Your initial comment doesn't change my point, just moves the goal post. If I want to deliver no IPhones, I'm stuck with the system. And you can make the same argument for the Play Store.

I don't think PC/XBox quite fit in the same ball-park. The engagement model is very different on those compared to mobile devices. Which is why video games still cost 60$ but most people won't pay more than a couple of dollars for an app.

I don't think that's the real disagreement we're having though. I think the misalignment is on whether 30% fees are acceptable or not.

Fees were high before the App Store. Verizon VCast (or what ever they were calling it) was taking 70 to 80%. In all this time the percentage has not changed, While you dismiss the console market Apple pours just as much money into maintaining it's iOS ecosystem as any of the console makers.

I don't disagree with that. But again, you have to start somewhere.

30% sounds steep, I agree. But it's also industry standard. See: Google Play Store, Microsoft Store, Steam, Samsung Galaxy Store, Amazon App Store, etc.

Doesn't that sound like a market failure? What kind of market supports such a consistent gross margin?

Oh I know, I think it's wrong across the board but you have to start somewhere.

Fair enough. Some companies do have a stronger case. MS and Amazon would however get pilloried here due to... other issues. Not many candidates around (unless some rich entity were to support a company's legal case from the shadows? These things do happen).

My suspicion is that Microsoft and Amazon aren't interested in charging in here because they're much more in "frenemy" positions with Apple; Amazon used to be fairly antagonistic toward the Big Fruit, but they've been more amenable to having their various services work together gracefully over the last few years, and Microsoft has ended up being pretty enthusiastic about Office on iOS. So they probably just figure that it's not worth going to war over.

It's shame that we all just accept today that a sufficiently large enough corporation is above the law. :(

Or, you know, you could get multiple companies working together. Why does it have to be a single company?

Theoretical objections of the sort "this could have been done some other way" are always rather strange, because they tend to ignore the actual fact that it has not been done some other way.

Yes, that would be possible. However, it is difficult to get multiple parties to cooperate and coordinate on an expensive for a long time. It requires a high degree of trust, or some form of legal instrument. Trust isn't very much around these days, maybe some clever legal instrument could have done it?

Two week’s ago’s The Verge coverture was pretty thorough and interesting.

Also Epic’s filled surprisingly readable lawsuits, covering your points and more.

> from that suit

Google’s lawsuit is a different one, with specific arguments. It includes for instance Google blocking makers from directly pre-installing Fortnite on devices, which would be bypassing the Store altogether.

> Epic Game Store

Not related to the lawsuits, but an issue with straight side-loading was how to auto-update the game itself (not just the content). For that you need a mechanism, I’d expect the Epic Store to be it.

Verge was a fluff piece for Epic. They go on to paint how the monolithic Apple is bad and throwing out Apple's dirty laundry (which is fine) but poor Tim Sweeney is just fighting for justice. Not mentioning his dealings with Silicon Knights, other engine developers and Valve.

Well, they spent years discussing app store policies, antitrust, ecosystem management, the impact of the biggest players (amazon, facebook etc.) in general.

It seems in brand to care more about the legal argument and its ramifications for Apple than bickering if Epic is being “unsincere”.

> Instead you have sideload... the Epic Games Store!

There are many levels to compete with Apple on, since they have decided to entrench themselves on every level. Epic is not competing with Apple on an Apple basis, where Apple doesn't want to allow a specific type of app (e.g. a browser with a different engine), they are competing with the App Store (which is how Apple ensures their App level advantage, and that you can't ship your own browser engine).

> It seems awfully clear that Epic's real goal here is to force both Apple and Google to let you install the Epic Games Store from the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store.

Whether from those stores or not, they want it to have a level playing field on the device. Apple doesn't allow that through not allowing the store on the device at all. Google restricts it by pushing a lot of the phone functionality through the Play store now.

Amazon has a store for Android too. Interesting how Google split a bunch of essential services away from the OS and into the Play services which are updated and handled through the Play store when that happened.

It makes perfect sense for Epic to go after both Google and Apple. Both restrict alternative marketplaces on their devices through anti-competitive behavior, even if their methods are entirely different.

> which is how Apple ensures their App level advantage, and that you can't ship your own browser engine.

To be clear, you can't ship your own JIT, including a Javascript runtime, because Apple does not give TestFlight or App Store distributed apps the ability to mark memory pages executable.

iOS supports two different app platforms, native apps via the App Store and HTML/Javascript/WebAssembly via Safari. One reason Safari exploits work is that the sandboxing and entitlements for Safari (and the WebKit/JavaScriptCore processes) are different from any other app.

A JavaScript runtime doesn't require a JIT to work, it just makes it a lot faster. That alone wouldn't keep alternative browsers from being in the store, there are plenty of reasons to want a different browser even if JavaScript runs slower on it.

Last I heard you couldn't ship any interpreted language on iOS, and this was the big reason given why you can't have your own browser (and many other types of apps that could benefit from some scripting interface).

But that's just one example anyway, and somewhat besides the point. I have no problem with Apple running their App Store and restricting what apps are allowed on it. I do have a problem with the App Store being the only trusted source for installing software and managing updates. It's one more link in the chain that makes any real competition on in the iPhone ecosystem beholden entirely to Apple's wishes.

> - Android is clearly more open than iOS, but Epic is also suing Google. So is this really about sideloading? From that suit, it sure doesn't sound like it.

Google is equally as responsible for anticompetitive behavior with their exclusive agreements with OEMs, and the fact that they've limited Android in such a way that third party app stores will never have feature parity with the Play Store.

If you distribute an app outside of the Play Store, there is no way to automatically upgrade it, upgrade or install it in the background or include in a batch of updates.

At least Samsung Galaxy Store can do those things.

> Instead you have sideload... the Epic Games Store!

I remember when Valve did that with HL2 and Steam. The outrage was similar [1]. Look how it turned out for Valve.

[1] https://games.slashdot.org/story/04/10/23/0812224/half-life-...

Valve was introducing a new kind of an experience with their store, because there were no digital stores for games before that (that were actually used; because no doubt someone in the comments will point out to some obscure digital game store that existed at that time, but no one has heard of or used).

Valve was not fighting an existing store using "stores are bad" as an argument, only to introduce another store. Which is exactly what Epic is doing here.

> Valve was not fighting an existing store using "stores are bad" as an argument, only to introduce another store. Which is exactly what Epic is doing here.

No. You are not arguing in good faith.

Epic has been very clear from the beginning that they would like to viably run a store on the major mobile hardware, they are not claiming that stores are bad in general.

Stardock comes to mind as the Obscure Store That We Probably Haven't Heard Of. But unlike Stardock, Steam was also a DRM platform, the first to implement Carmack's observation ("The Internet is the ultimate dongle.")

In retrospect, it seems to have worked out pretty well for the company and its customers. Gabe Newell has proven to be a more benevolent dictator than his counterparts at Apple and Microsoft.

Their argument is closer to "30 percent cuts are bad" and they are not hypocrites there. Probably something about monocultures too.

Woa, I never realized that to compete as an app store on Android you could not sell your competing app store on the Android store itself.

The Android suit has different claims in it than the iOS suit. One of the issues with Android is the allegation that Google killed deals Epic was trying to make with Android hardware manufacturers (by voicing objections to the manufacturers, who rely on Google) to get the Epic Store app preinstalled on some Android devices.

> to force both Apple and Google to let you install the Epic Games Store from the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store That is what he asked for in his email to Apple that is part of the court filings. Epic Game Store on iOS with full OS level access without Apple's approval to anything they release. Also 0% fees to Apple for IAP.

It's the correct goal to aim for here, beyond just the fees. Multiple fully functioning app stores is good for consumers on both platforms.

Well, I think not having a sole official gatekeeper is good for consumers on both platforms -- I'm mostly agnostic about the mechanism for getting there. I'm not convinced requiring Apple and Google to host other people's app stores in their app stores is actually a good idea, if only because I'm skeptical that a government-imposed regulatory mechanism for that wouldn't have unforeseen and unintended consequences.

Even so, I actually think it would be good for Apple if they stopped insisting on being the exclusive funnel for all iOS applications, too. Yes, it would mean a certain amount of lost services revenue, but in addition to avoiding PR fiascos and regulatory interventions, it takes a certain amount of pressure off their reviewers -- and might let some really interesting niche applications bloom.

That's what WeChat is already. It's an entire ecosystem with its own mini-apps, payments and community. Many users in China only use WeChat as the OS on top of iOS.

Apple is still trying to deal with that and doesn't really have a solution, and it only adds to the numerous inconsistent practices with the App Store.