> “Following conversations with Epic, they have committed to follow the rules, including our DMA policies. As a result, Epic Sweden AB has been permitted to re-sign the developer agreement and accepted into the Apple Developer Program.”
I think Apple may behave more creditably from here on out.
An ideology that helps you build and grow a new platform may not be equally suitable for running a dominant platform on which significant parts of the world economy depend.
In this case, they suspended the account, put themselves further into the spotlight, and then reactivated the account.
Hold in mind that everything involves trade offs. Authoritarianism is really good at monomaniacal focus on something that the dictator thinks is important, they just tend to fail at all the other stuff. And it is fine - indeed, remarkably effective - as long as people can leave when the focus isn't benefiting them.
Democracy sucks at pretty much everything except being flexible in the face of change and empowering voters. You do not want your food supply being run according to democratic principles, you want it to work.
[0] And most open source projects AFAIK
If you talk to the CEOs of large companies or miltary leaders, you find that they are unable to exert effective control of their organisations. The organisation will do whatever it wants to do. The leader can make their command but at every level through the organisation that command will be slightly subverted. The more layers, the less of that command will get through.
Since it's in the news, take for example Putin and Russia, Putin thought he had tank battalions that his lower downs had sold for parts decades ago. Based on the information in front of him, he should have taken Ukraine in several days regardless of resistance by the locals.
And whilst you might think it's impressive that he cut the budget in US congress to Ukraine, back-handed deals to send old Soviet equipment from 3rd party countries to Ukraine were made and now they are exhausted London is loaning Ukraine, Russia's money.
Putin's authoritarian Russia might be able to cut off the head of democracy but he's up against a five headed hydra. Democracy is a lot more scary than Authoritarism from a military perspective.
"You do not want your food supply being run according to democratic principles, you want it to work."
This is something that people don't really get, what's important is that the people delivering the food get the sack if they failed to do it. As long as that happens it's okay.
That's the reason why socialist and overly authoritarian countries have supply problems, they don't have an effective mechanism to replace failing organisations. Venezuela isn't able to extract Oil because the Oil dereks are run by the local dictator's family members.
Yes. But note that armies are a hierarchy with little flexibility once orders start coming down. When democracies want to achieve outcomes they set up (subordinate) dictatorships. The army does not stop to vote in the middle of a war. Indeed, sticking to the Ukraine example, they suspended elections as I assume is usual in war.
Democracy is a better model of governance because the military can focus on winning wars. In a dictatorship, the military has to focus on keeping the dictator in power - otherwise the dictator will get rolled. Since authoritarianism can only do one thing at once, generally they have a weak military at the expense of stability.
It doesn't matter where the power officially stems from, the decision making bandwidth and incentive structures govern results - and for companies that is a clear authoritarian model.
There can be, but it's not necessary in a democracy and you can design a democracy in which any action is subordinate to the demos should they choose to operate against it.
I wouldn't say Nazi Germany had a weak military. They had problems with too many tank models (to appease Hitler?) but they only begain losing the war when everyone else that was against them got their act together. And of course, invading Russia. That one was stupid.
Apple backed down, like they did a week ago with PWAs.
Eh. Backing down would be Apple allowing non-WebKit browsers to run PWAs.
Apple can talk to the Commission all they want and persuade them not to take action. However, they cannot bend the ECJ's ear. If someone forces the issue through the courts (yes, it's a slow procedure and yes the ECJ can choose not to pick up a case, but that's down to the skills of the involved legal heads), what will matter is the directive as written.
Apple will likely continue to drag their feet, but the outcome looks fairly inevitable. It might well come when we've all moved on to "AI, show me data" instead of using browsers, but it will very likely come.
They then backed down after Open Web Advocacy ran surveys, an open letter and the EU started a investigation.
Apple releases developer notes containing changes included in its betas. Such a change should obviously have appeared right away when iOS 17.4 beta 1 was released. It did not.
After two weeks of backlash, Apple did confirm it was removing the feature in a public statement. They just did not want to announce it publicly before.
After two other weeks of bigger backlash and the start of an EU investigation, they publicly announced they would not remove the feature after all.
They 100% intended to remove the feature, and 100% backed down.
Epic could have avoided all this by just responding to Apple and signing the EU Addendum affirming they would stick to the laws. Instead they wanted to get into the news cycle.
This is the policy they have to agree to: https://developer.apple.com/contact/request/download/alterna...
Includes the tweet as well as confirmation they that the commission did talk to Apple on Thursday
If any official action was taken it would have to be documented with a case: https://digital-markets-act-cases.ec.europa.eu/search
You don’t want an official investigation, they are a complete nightmare that eat up months of work hours. Much better to spend a couple of days making sure you can give the correct answers on the first pass. Unless of course you genuinely believe the regulators are pushing beyond their remit, but know you’re voluntary signing up for an expensive and protracted fight.
The EU has an long tradition of "conversations" and "questions" with an unstated "give the right answer and you can avoid an unpleasant official action".
You're right there is no official casework. That is also entirely irrelevant to the issue of whether or not Apple caved under pressure.
You are thinking of the mob. Thankfully here in the US official actions are generally done in view of the public.
The “probe” here would be, at least in the first instance, usually mostly letters asking questions. Note that it is “reportedly”; the media didn’t find this out because the DOJ had a banner on its website saying “we are investigating an alleged glass house”. That comes later, if things are not resolved.
(In some cases this is itself somewhat formalised.)
My guess is that they saw that all happening but Epic provided them a letter saying they double pinky promised, cross their hearts, will obey by the rules this time, which Apple will later try to use in court later on. Otherwise it doesn’t seem worth the risk prompting clearly foreseeable regulator action.
After all, legal advice can usually be summed up as “if you do anything, someone can fuck you”, and do nothing isn’t a good business strategy.
Apple banned Epic the day before DMA came into effect when doing this sort of thing was still legal, they 100% saw this. They did probably bet on the chance EU would overlook it if they did it before the law came into effect, they lost that bet but they thought it was worth a try.
There was a grace period for compliance for companies found in violation, because that determination was made after it came into force, not before.
You can't find a company to violate a regulation that's not in force, and it's reasonable to give a company in violation of complex piece of law (that's never been tested) some period to comply.
But that doesn't mean the law is not already in force.
Legal doesn't make decisions like this. That's not what they are paid to do.
Legal advises the executives of the consequences of decisions like this.
And if there's one thing that you should expect from people in positions of incredible power (executives), it's that they often believe that they are immune to the consequences of their decisions.
Most of the time they are right. Sometimes, they are not.
The main points of contention are: - the technology fee (the cost of advertising has already cut badly into their margins in the wake of identifier reform); - the clause making the Addendum also binding on any corporate parents and subsidiaries — the game industry is pretty consolidated and this limits the options for independent game studios which are also subsidiaries;
The fee is particularly nasty for hypercasual games, where a very realistic scenario has you paying for millions of installs, only to find your monetization lacking and you paying additional fees to the platform, of all things.
There are very real concerns with the Addendum and making signing only about Epic’s bona fides is reductive and wrong.
Apple (and Google) need to be saved from themselves sometimes.
Meanwhile the repeated reversals are making Apple look guilty and nefarious.
I get the sentiment, but it's nice to finally have lawmakers and regulators standing for what's right - for once.
It’s funny how when Apple threatens a European company the EC can act within days, but when a German company is violating the GDPR, it takes 4 years for them to act. What a strange coincidence.
That's not up to you. What you get to decide is which stores you're willing to install apps from. If lots of people refuse to install apps from unrestrictive stores then developers who want to reach those users will have to meet the requirements of more restrictive stores.
You would only not have this choice if the app has a dominant market position, and then can force you to get it from a store you don't want to use. But then your problem isn't an overabundance of trust busting, it's an insufficiency of it.
The only solace is that you can modify Android to the point where there's almost no Google interference whatsoever. But of course some apps choose to rely on that (e.g. Banking).maybe one day Apple will begrudgingly get to that point.
MS beat Apple to market by a considerable margin. Windows Mobile substantially predates the iPhone, and it was actually usable. (I had one of their flagship devices.)
But MS’s OS concept was incoherent, their UI was laggy, their web browser was unbearably slow despite arguably superior hardware, their form factor was not snazzy. And, unlike Apple, they utterly failed at marketing to consumers.
Also, Apple out their foot down against carrier nonsense, so Apple users didn’t have to deal with $14.99/mo for Verizon Location or whatever they called it. (Although, to be fair, the original iPhone didn’t have GPS. Blackberry had far superior hardware at the time and really ought to have been able to compete, but they didn’t.)
By the time the App Store showed up, it was pretty clear that Apple was beating MS.
windows was well windows 8 and everyone hated it and everything about it. (and pre-windows phone 8 it was to fragmented with to many incompatible versions and little 3rd party support)
Palm/HP WebOS was the real mobile OS with the best chance to win but failed because well HP... need i say more.
Has trapped so many businesses.
Enterprise customers can afford to pay enough to support good profit margins...
... but there are many more regular consumers, and regular consumer demands tend to produce better solutions than baroque enterprise demands (usually company- or VP-specific).
Blackberry was doing great with keyboards and refused to sell more of. Windows Mobile had tons of muscles as market share they just trimmed off. Windows Phone had Marketplace trust issue that couldn't be solved. Nokia burned itself down before Google. Palm did most of it right, but couldn't be bothered with exclusivity reneg.
I can't say solving any one of them could have saved each of the brands, but they all had one giant elephant each that were enough to drag them down.
That was the attitude for a minute until the CEO got a cool iPhone.
Same with Macs. And jeans.
This is the main point, not the "also". Apple's revolution was actually getting it in the hands of real life consumers who paid for cell phone plans. The tech was already there with blackberry, but you had to have business to afford it. Yes, the original iPhone itself was a technical marvel, but it would have been a dead fish if it wasn't for the at& t deal that came out as part of it.
Apple didn't invent anything in the original iPhone, except the software. And the first version was really lacking and very buggy.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/steve-jobs-rigged-first-iphon...
Other phones that predated the iPhone release had more capabilities and more software. There was nothing really "marvelous" about the original iPhone, it was many years behind Microsoft.
The HTC Wizard was a "technical marvel" in 2005. Apple was playing catch-up in 2007.
At the time I had an HTC TyTN 2 phone that did everything the iPhone could do and more, and had a removable battery, about the same size as the battery inside the iPhone 1. If you look at photos of the TyTN 2 battery, and the iPhone 1 battery, they are very close to the same size.
There was very little difference between those batteries. The TyTN 2 had a 1350mA hour lithium battery. The iPhone 1 had a 1400mA hour lithium battery. Practically no difference there in size or capacity.
So, no, the iPhone's battery was not a "technical marvel" any more than other phones of that era.
And in fact Apple's was a step back by being non-removable. I absolutely loved having a removable battery, because I could bring 2 or 3 with me on a long trip and never have to charge the phone. Apple was less functional in that way.
> "The iPhone "couldn’t do what [Apple was] demonstrating without an insanely power hungry processor, it must have terrible battery life," Shacknews poster Kentor heard from his former colleagues of the time. "Imagine their surprise [at RIM] when they disassembled an iPhone for the first time and found that the phone was battery with a tiny logic board strapped to it."
https://www.redmondpie.com/blackberry-maker-rim-thought-appl...
This was a marketing and perception issue, not a price issue. When the original iPhone came out, I had a very nice blackberry, with a personal plan, effectively unlimited data, and the full blackberry suite (minus corporate integration, obviously). And I think it was less expensive than the iPhone plan. But it was a pain in the neck! I had to pick the correct phone plan, add the correct data supplement, negotiate the correct discount (basically everyone was eligible for a discount, but you had to find your particular reason for being eligible in a ridiculous menu), and then convince the sales person to add the special $3.99/mo supplement for blackberry services. It clearly never occurred to anyone involved that this was not a competent way to sell to consumers!
I did make fun of my friends for paying several dollars more per month for a device with no keyboard, no GPS, slower data, less efficient text input, and dramatically worse performance in marginal network conditions.
When I finally switched to an iPhone 3G, I could do real in the browser, but wow, the ability to make phone calls was seriously downgraded. I feel like my old blackberry may have had the best behaved cellular modem of any smart device I’ve ever owned.
I think that, if RIM had gotten YouTube and a music player working, had improved the web browser, and stuck a capacitive touch sensor on their device, and if they had marketed it competently (make it so that customers could walk into a store, pay $55/mo, and walk away with a working device without a fight!), they might have remained competitive.
Apple didn’t bother, they used an entirely different UI from the start, and it was a UI aimed at everyone from kids to grandparents, not just tech people.
that's because they half assed it.
There's always the risk that mobile phones supersedes the desktop, and thus cannibalize the desktop windows sales. Microsoft also likely not able to force OEM licensing in the same way that they could with windows on PC sellers.
If you could literally run windows apps on a phone back then, i reckon the MS phones would've at least grabbed some marketshare. Of course, the mobile hardware back then isn't as powerful, so there's the excuse that win32 cannot run there.
Microsoft execs had their heads buried too deep in their own asses to be able to understand what was needed at the time.
They pushed a platform (Windows phone) that lacked interesting features out of the box, lacked cloud services integration to fill the gap left by the lacking base features, and required Windows as a development platform (and, iirc, C# as well?). It didn't even have any particular windows-ecosystem speciality: no special exchange integration, no special windows pc integration, nothing. Microsoft could have exploited the same reasons they exploited with Azure, Office365 and the general enterprise: microsoft phones should just integrates perfectly with other microsoft stuff. It could have been the no-brainer choice: we use ActiveDirectory and Office365 as a suite, we'll get a Windows Phones as everything just works immediately. No, nobody had thought of that.
The value proposition was just not there.
So basically another walled garden, but dumber. And the hardware didn't have anything special to make it "worth".
Seriously, the original iPhone had little going for it technically. No GPS, poor data bandwidth, no apps, and minimal ability to make phone calls. (It took the combined efforts of Apple and AT&T a couple generations before you could reliably place a call.)
But it had a touch screen that felt nice, and you could watch videos and play music! The web browser actually performed well despite the low bandwidth. It could zoom. And Steve Jobs marketed it well, whereas Steve Ballmer was terrible at marketing.
IMO the iPhone was considerably worse for business use than Windows Mobile, and neither one held a candle to the BlackBerry. But it didn’t matter.
Things that apparently were not that important at launch. Apple did negotiate "unlimited" data plans with Cingular/AT&T.
> But it had a touch screen that felt nice, and you could watch videos and play music! The web browser actually performed well despite the low bandwidth
Better UI, better media playback, web browser that worked. Sounds like a classic example of Apple taking what is out there and simply doing it better.
Basically an observation that consumers were interested in digital media players, which Apple had some expertise in building (iPods, for younger folks).
And that a usable browser was a killer feature (most of the web not having reactive mobile sites, and no apps, then).
And if you combined all of the above with a cell phone, customers would rather carry 1 device than the 3 it previously took.
And not coincidentally this is exactly how Jobs pitched the original iPhone unveil.
An iPod, a phone, an internet communicator, an iPod, a phone…
you could have just shortened that to "Steve Ballmer was terrible" and been more accurate.
IMO the real problem with Windows Phone was the complete failure to produce an actual platform. Windows Phone 7 was incompatible with Windows Mobile, and _Windows Phone 8 was largely incompatible with Windows Phone 7_! The whole thing was comically developer hostile.
(Second mistake; Windows Phone 7’s UI ran at 30fps, presumably in an attempt to save battery. This made it feel a lot worse than iOS and Android.)
Now, Apple is achieving per-eminance in the cross-device consumer OS market in the latop+tablet+smartphone space and Windows is slowly dying. Microsoft will just set to become yet another boring cloud services company.
Only in the US and global high-end market. This is an extremely profitable market to be leading and I'm not trying to minimize Apple's achievement, but globally relatively few people use their phones and tablets, and ever fewer use their traditional computers.
Apple has a sizable lead, but I think the "idea" of what a smartphone is has been locked in essentially in the mind of consumers and their technological lead will only last so long as time passes. They are Microsoft but of smartphones and 20 years younger than windows desktop PCs. They know this, which is why they constantly make new things and try to develop new products (vr headsets, etc).
Smart people can make mischief visible or invisible without necessarily getting caught defecting or cooperating.
Oops did I draw that regulator’s attention to the room where we keep the bodies? Silly me.
You don't need to do radical changes, just small actions like do not steal the tips students send to teachers.
Going full-goblin mode and demanding 30% of all the money that moves through a phone is what is destroying Apple.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/21/in-a-reversal-apple-is-now...
Except all of us who value privacy and security.
Face it: the major competition between app stores is not going to be on price, but a race to the bottom on who can allow apps to fuck over users the hardest.
If there's one company I don't expect that from, it's Apple. They may have highly dubious ethics but they are damn good at business and marketing, and I would be utterly shocked if they don't position themselves as the safe, privacy-friendly official app store. For people who don't enable side-loading, I wouldn't expect they'll even notice any changes.
And I'm sure Facebook is anticipating not having to ask for permission to hoover up all your personal data. Sure you don't need facebook, but if you want to be using WhatsApp to communicate with your friends and family, you might not have a choice. Shady companies that sell shady spyware to schools "for the children" are looking forward to a much easier time rolling out the most invasive ideas they have. The ad companies are I'm sure salivating over telemetry libraries with extra detailed modes for non-Apple app store installations.
But most of all, I look at Android where alternative app stores are possible with essentially no cost, and even with Amazon's enormous resources behind it, they could not get an alternative app store to catch on. I can't think of any reason why it would be different on iOS, so ultimately I suppose I expect this to go nowhere and a few years from now there will be the epic game store and the main app store and everything for nearly everybody will just be on the app store like it is now. The alternative stores will just have the apps that Apple wouldn't approve, like porn apps or privacy invasive, etc
Considering this hasn't happened on Android yet, I doubt you are in real trouble. Like it's not that they can really gain extra permissions (other than I guess tracking anything the app already has access to, but that isn't any different than currently) because they are sandboxed by the OS and limited in access through the permission system... I HOPE? RIGHT? @APPLE
And on the side of other app stores: there is F-Droid which is decently popular for OSS apps.
As far as I can tell, Apple doesn't plan to let this happen.
Nobody would be going after Apple if they had simply stopped their monopoly pricing scheme.
Its too late for that now. Now Apple is going to be forced, under threat of government action, to stop its anti-competitive actions.
We're a society of laws and they apply equally to everyone. If you don't like the laws either vote accordingly, talk to your representative, organise a political action, or leave for a more agreeable jurisdiction.
Also, the US fined Airbus $582 million in 2020.
How did I know that she was the one opposing it? I'm not glad she's dead, but I am glad she isn't on the Senate any more.
The EU is infinitely better than living in the states. At least for this third world immigrant.
I think the bread in the US, sans the supermarket stuff, is generally exceptional with bakeries throughout most cities that are top notch. Some of the best creameries in the world are in the US now. Beer is also generally more innovative and better. There is also a much broader food community in that I can eat food from every culture on earth with pretty high quality in every city. Europe tends to be much less diverse and less creative in its foods. However, yes, if you only eat fast food and shop at big box grocery stores (which also exist in Europe) staples are pretty low quality.
The US has a very strong and thriving food movement, and isn’t a strict monoculture by geography. There are layers upon layers of cultures intertwined throughout the country. Generically “American culture” is essentially a marketing regime for large companies selling their stuff. But the reality of America is much more complex than that, and that’s accelerated since the 1950’s, and was completely broken down in the 1990’s.
Most of the polarization stems from that destruction of the American monoculture belief system and a reaction against that. It’s the last gasp of people who see a way of thinking falling apart. But what comes out of that cultural change is excellent bread, cheese, beer, etc.
This whole thread is just bizarre.
If I go to your average Italian city I simply won’t find good Thai food. I’ll get a lot of great Italian food for sure. But no Malay, no Nepalese, no afghan, no Peruvian, etc. I’m sure you’ll find counter examples, but the US genuinely is a melting pot with well established ethnic subcultures of all cultures on earth and the general society is pretty open. There’s no French nationalism etc. The thing is there’s no established cultural monoculture like you find in most of the world - what people mistake for a lack of culture in America is that it’s a palimpsest of hundreds of cultures, and they all bring their foods to the American table.
This isn’t a knock on the modern multiculturalism in Europe, it’s more a statement that the established historic cultures in Europe squeeze out the diversity more than in the US with its lack of established historic culture that has almost entirely evaporated in the last 80 years.
Also, in your average Italian city, the average meal will still be healthier than the average American meal. The idea of food deserts is what doesn’t exist in Europe, at least not Western Europe. The local mom and pop shops still have veggies and fruits, and I was amazed to find none within biking distance when I was in the US.
I don’t want to have to need to shop at Trader Joes, Whole Foods, or live in a posh city to avoid having to eat over-processed food and be constipated all of the time.
Who told you that? I mean, it’s certainly the case in some places (particularly in large affluent cities), but, much like in the US, it’s variable. If you take EU countries and the US and rank by home ownership percentage, the US is on the low end (even Ireland, with its long-running nationwide housing crisis, beats the US here). Notably _Germany_ is much lower (65% of US homes are owner occupied, 50% of German homes), but Germany’s an outlier in Europe on this; to a large extent it’s driven by below-cost social housing.
Economic growth isn't great but could be a lot worse if I look at the rest of the world.
Energy transition for sure has some huge challenges but again, we're doing pretty great compared to other places in the world.
Housing is an issue, but where isn't housing an issue?
Which 70 years?
After the gold standard everyone except the US has been paying for it
TSMC's delays have to do with not offering enough pay not a lack of people capable of installing wafer fab tools or building electrical or mechanical systems for fabs.
Every country talks 'free trade!' out of one side of their mouth, and implements protectionism via various concerns about health/safety/fairness out of the other when it's expedient. The US isn't any different, it's just not tech companies we're worried about (except some clock app that the Gen Z kids are obsessed with).
But guess who pays the best bribes?
(that was free, I’ll take the downvotes)
Regulators don't seem to have had anything to do with it.
---
So what changed? Apple tells 9to5Mac that it has held further discussions with Epic. The result is that Apple has received proper commitment that Epic will play by the rules as legally defined.
“Following conversations with Epic, they have committed to follow the rules, including our DMA policies. As a result, Epic Sweden AB has been permitted to re-sign the developer agreement and accepted into the Apple Developer Program.”
"""Even with screenshots, and assuming no false claims (which IIRC are entirely legal so long as you don't swear under oath), there's plenty of ways to mislead by omission while saying only true things.""" — works just as well in either direction.
Regulators have to look closely, if they take it on trust it's one Tim's word vs. the others'.
This fallacy plays out a lot in politics. "Epic has lied in the past, so all parties involved must be lying."
I can't take both of them on faith alone, because at least one of them must be wrong. I'm not qualified to decide between them, so I should weight them equally. Public statements from the parties, or fans of the parties, are reasonable to suspect of being tactical with the truth even when no falsehoods are stated, rather than giving a complete picture.
Epic makes false statements because they have a megalomaniac CEO running the show, Apple on the other hand generally tries to avoid legal and PR troubles and has multiple teams of lawyers who review every public statement on an issue.
They fear the spotlight on the fact that even on alternate stores only accounts controlled by Apple can publish apps, which might become the focus of new regulations
This is the EU commissioner.
Not fully the truth, however -- according to APPLE, who are quoted in this one article. Tim Sweeny tweeted that the change was due to the EU DMA political proponents applying pressure to Apple.
The truth is not known, and it's not limited to Apple's side.
> “I take note with satisfaction that following our contacts Apple decided to backtrack its decision on Epic exclusion. From Day 2, #DMA is already showing very concrete results!” Breton said on Twitter/X.
We can't be certain it was the EU's pressure that made Apple react, but anything else seems rather unlikely.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/08/fortnite-...
This smells, you know? The timing is just so precise to be a coincidence.
Disagree. EU regulators act quickly. Here's the commissioner for Internal Market of the Eu: "I take note with satisfaction that following our contacts Apple decided to backtrack its decision on Epic exclusion. From Day 2, #DMA is already showing very concrete results!" https://twitter.com/ThierryBreton/status/1766167580497117464
The EU told Apple that breaking the law would have dire consequences. That's the only reason Apple backed down.
Stop spreading Apple propaganda.
No they don't. They are absolutely still able to start a lawsuit, as is the EU.
We likely won't have to wait more than a couple weeks to see the lawsuits filed.
So then this would be the process of not accepting Apple's interpretation of the DMA.
Thats my point. That is the exact process for which they would be rejecting Apple's interpretation.
So no, they don't have to accept Apple's interpretation, instead they can go through this process.
Please don't try to start flame wars on HN. You should read the guidelines:
Remember all this DMA stuff is coming from the same organization that wants to force Chrome and Firefox to accept TLS certificates issued by governments for any website they want: https://therecord.media/eu-urged-to-drop-law-website-authent...
Dma is mostly about choice for a couple of developers. Not for users. No way will Epic publish games on their own and Apples store, they did not do it with the Epic Store either. Consumers did not have a choice where to buy when Epic bought exclusive access.
I think their strategy is to move the point of reference for future negotiations to an extreme end of the spectrum of what could still be considered to comply with the letter of the law.