An important part of this is that as far as I can tell, most AAA mobile games now ship all but the most fundamental "code updates" as updates to interpreted scripts/data files over the Internet, bypassing the App Store update mechanism. (Where does data end and code begin? That's a philosophical argument that historically Apple could look the other way on for high-performing mobile games with weekly or even more frequent event releases.)

Part of the calculus must have been that Fortnite was stable enough, especially from a low-level and netcode perspective, that it could do without needing App Store updates to remain cross-play compatible in the medium-term.

Apple's iOS ToS specifically forbids downloading and executing code by the app. (with a definition of "code", and "execute" somewhere in the document)

While you could technically hide this from them during the review stage, apple can stop any app from functioning on any iOS device connected to the internet by revoking the certificate, if they discover it at a later stage.

Are there noteworthy apps that break this term in the wild?

This clause is impossible to apply to games.

Any level of a game contains at least some logic like NPC behaviors, event triggering etc. and I'm sure scripting is a standard component of every single game.

Have you heard of Thimbleweed Park? It's basically a VM executing an adventure game language (like the creator's SCUMM VM in the past).

That's on the App Store.

Now if we specifically look at the downloading part, that would mean games on iOS cannot download new levels, which I think is done by a lot of games.

The clause is impossible to apply period. It's undecidable.

I don't think my original comment was clear about how I view the ToS as a hammer Apple made for themselves to wield. Not for the good of anyone, but apple.

Their goal here being to cover their ass and have a rule, that you already "agreed" to follow, to point at when they want to get rid of your app. Apple's legal tech has always been years ahead of their electronic tech, I'm honestly curious to see if epic's got some sort of counter to apple's usual legal shenanigans.

In the court hearings, Epic explained how they implemented their payment processor change addition without catching Apple's notice. The app simply asks the Epic servers for a list of payment processors available to display to users, and at review time it was only the Apple one. A week after the update, they added another entry to the DB, and now there's a second option, without modifying app code.

The Simpsons game regularly downloads game updates, and much to my chagrin because the updates are gigantic.

This is extremely common in games, less so in productivity apps.

But it allows downloading and executing interpreted code. See paragraph 3.3.2 of Apple Developer Program License Agreement.

So you can have significant portion of your app in say javascript, which you can update OTA.

E.g. react native apps have most of their functionality in js and can use services like code push to update themselves without app store and it doesn't violate Apple ToS.

The new Fortnite season 4, which should be very profitable, will not be available on iOS.

Plus no new customers on iOS.

~25% (straight line) of their customer base churns to a new iPhone every year [1].

Those customers will no longer be able to download Fortnite.

[1] https://9to5mac.com/2019/02/08/four-year-smartphone-upgrades...

They might now buy Android devices instead. It goes both ways.

Which would be a huge indication that Fortnite is a key feature.

However, it seems bubble colour is important.

"Why'd You Push That Button - Why do iPhone users judge people with green text bubbles?"

https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/15/18624681/apple-imessage-a...

That must be a US-only thing. In the rest of the world everyone uses WhatsApp/Telegram/Viber/etc (WeChat in China) and iMessage is not popular at all.

That's not always true though. Although WhatsApp is very popular here in South Africa, I use iMessage most of the time because most friends/colleagues/family have iPhones.

And honestly I have switched off notifications on WhatsApp (I cannot recommend this highly enough!) so that's the only quick way to reach me. I am sure others do the same.

Your bubble is not representative of South Africa mobile market:

    Android 85%
    iOS 15%

https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/south-afri...

Indeed. Of course it has to be pointed out that 70% of the population can barely afford a smartphone, so they get the cheapest ones, which are obviously not going to be an iPhone.

wow, that's an interesting dark pattern i hadn't encountered before!

That’s not what “dark pattern” means. Dark patterns are designed to cheat or deceive.

The blue bubbles are quite useful because it lets you know if your message is being transmitted encrypted or not (green SMS bubbles mean effectively cleartext).

I was referring specifically to the claim the podcast made that non-iphone messages were subtly made to look ugly or out of place

I thought it was also off Android right now.

No, it's only off the Play Store. But you can still download and install it from elsewhere. iOS is unique in that you can only install apps through the store; there is no side-loading.

Sideloading by developer access and by jailbreaking are things.

Does the former require paying $99/yr to Apple? If so no thanks.

And as for jailbreaking, the last time I jailbroke an iOS device was many years ago, and it never worked 100%. Every time I rebooted the damn thing it had to be connected to a computer to re-unlock it again. I don't know how the experience is now but it was terrible then. I haven't bought an Apple device since because I like the out-of-the-box ability to install whatever random stuff I want.

You don’t need to pay anything to develop on your own devices.

OK so can I use this to install Fortnite? How? And does it mean I need a Mac computer in addition to my iPhone?

What are they going to buy? All the new content is on the other platforms.

So the court case will wind up being a moot point.

This is a technology forum, so speaking of technology... maybe there will just be some radical streaming or delivery innovation, compatible with Mobile Safari today, that could really change the state of at least games and movies on iOS. I wonder why that hasn't happened sooner.

They have the app as long as they don't have to reinstall it (new or replacement phone)

Perhaps that works for epic as well, giving apple customers an incentive to move to a platform that allows side loading?

Nobody sideloads, especially not kids

Kids are technologically clever, and so long as one of them figures it out it's gonna virally spread to the rest of them. That's certainly how it was for me in school.

So, I suspect that lots of people are going to be sideloading in the very near future.

If my young cousins in a 3rd world country are any indicator, sideloading will lose its "fear factor" because these kids are doing insane things with devices these days, stuff I wouldn't have been able to nor had any will to do in their day. Even more so the ones in 1st world countries!

e.g. I agree with you.

Definitely less "insane things" these days than back in the day. I remember jailbreaking Sony PSPs for all my classmates in middle school :D Later when iOS became big, the only common "insane" thing was app store account sharing.

They're also fickle, so if you lose momentum for long, your target audience may move on.

I don't think that is quite right. Fdroid and the Amazon app store are two prominent examples. While they don't have the same impact as the first party store, they also aren't Fortnite.