Tim Cook has been absolutely fantastic for Apple shareholders and absolutely awful for anyone else, particularly the customers.
The walled garden has to end. There is no excuse for making people pay a premium price for an iPad Pro that can't run a third party web browser or do software development in any meaningful way.
Outside of a very narrow use case, the iPad product range is useless, despite the endless rantings of the brainwashed fanboys. Source: used to be one. Left the ecosystem when they started treating the RFCs like toilet paper.
> ... the appeals court now suggests that Apple should still be able to charge a “reasonable fee” based on its “actual costs to ensure user security and privacy.”
> Speaking to reporters Thursday night, though, Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said he believes those should be “super super minor fees,” on the order of “tens or hundreds of dollars” every time an iOS app update goes through Apple for review.
Wow, one step forward, and one step back. Good job, Epic.
The outcome is obviously going to be that Apple's store will have the most apps, with the most up to date versions, and with the most free apps/games. I'm sure Fortnite will do just fine though.
Unless I'm misunderstanding this, why would the court allow Apple to act as a gatekeeper for their competitors?
I don’t feel great about this ruling. Whatever a “reasonable” fee is supposed to mean, Apple will interpret it to some ridiculous amount. Before the ban, they tried to charge 27%
> Speaking to reporters Thursday night, though, Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said he believes those should be “super super minor fees,” on the order of “tens or hundreds of dollars” every time an iOS app update goes through Apple for review. That should be more than enough to compensate the employees reviewing the apps to make sure outside payment links are not scams
I would think making sure outside payment links aren’t scams will be more expensive than that because checking that once isn’t sufficient. Scammers will update the target of such links, so you can’t just check this at app submission time. You also will have to check from around the world, from different IP address ranges, outside California business hours, etc, because scammer are smart enough to use such info to decide whether to show their scammy page.
Also, even if it becomes ‘only’ hundreds of dollars, I guess only large companies will be able to afford providing an option for outside payments.
This isn't about whether Apple allows outside payment links or not. It's about whether Apple takes a percentage cut from outside payments.
Is Apple actually checking outside payments for scams outside of review times? Do they check non-payment links for scams outside of review times? How often?
The point is that they should only be able to charge a fee for work they are truly doing, and it shouldn't be retaliatory.
Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said he believes those should be “super super minor fees,” on the order of “tens or hundreds of dollars” every time an iOS app update goes through Apple for review. That should be more than enough to compensate the employees reviewing the apps to make sure outside payment links are not scams and lead to a system of “normal fees for normal businesses that sell normal things to normal customers,” Sweeney said.
Tens to hundreds every time an app goes through review is "super supor minor"... This is how you know Epic has the backs of all the indie devs who fret about $100/year dev membership.
I don't know a lot about this, but for example an would app side loaded or delivered via F-Droid be subject to this policy?
F-Droid notwithstanding using an alternative app is not a very attractive option right now as there no good alternatives. But if Valve can create an Android app store that competes with the Play store, the in principle situation is very different.
Presumably not, as it's a contractual thing when you upload something to Google Play. Not sure if there are rules about only uploading to Google Play if you use it at all.
I've no idea, but I presume it's not even possible to use the Google Play purchasing API if your app isn't on the Play store.
It feels like courts are not doing a good job promoting "competition".
- Apple shouldn't be able to charge for external payments, come on.
- Force prominent disclosure of refund policies. Epic Games doesn't allow them for IAP. Apple does. Epic knows exactly how predatory that is, betting some kids will find ways to spend thousands and the parents will be helpless. Ideally you'd have a law mandating refunds, but without that, there should be mandatory disclosure on the IAP screen, at least for microtransaction games. You can't have fair "competition" when you have an information asymmetry, and if these rulings don't mandate that, you'll open the floodgate for these gaming companies to screw over parents.
Will Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Valve and another software store have to allow mini stores on their platforms? That's to say software with its own payment system, inside of a free app?
I would not buy a FIDO2 token if it allowed anybody to reprogram it, including me. If you managed to make selling me such a device illegal, then may a pox descend on your house.
The "reasonable" fees are not gonna be only a few hundred bucks, it'll still be a percentage of revenue but smaller than 27%. Apple will try to extract as much as possible and will not tolerate a non-percentage fee.
Will this help other services like Netflix, Spotify? Or am I misreading things.
My understanding, at least several years ago, that Netflix was paying as much to Apple in subscription fees, as they did for their AWS hosting.
I also noticed when upgrading my Spotify account, I couldn't do that through the iphone app itself - I assumed this was because it would break TOS, or they didn't want to pay a massive chunck of the monthly subscription cost to Apple.
It's odd to celebrate having the key sanctions unwound.
Before this ruling:
1. Apple were prohibited from charging any fee for external/referral purchases. Now this is once again allowed and the district court will work with all parties to develop a reasonable commission.
2. External links were permitted to dominate over IAP options. Now they must have equal size, prominence and quantity.
3. Apple were prevented from showing any kind of exit screen, that is now restored (but it can't be a scare screen).
4. Apple were barred from preventing certain developers/app classes from using external links (such as those enrolled in the News or Video Partner Programs) those are now reversed and Apple can once again prevent them.
Epic/Tim Sweeney are trying to spin these recent losses as a win. It's the old marketing playbook of hoping no one reads the fine print.
> the web proves that security / safety can be done in an open way
A) the web is full of phishing and other scams, as well as tons of low quality garbage
B) the web achieves this security model by limiting applications to a browser sandbox, which imposes restrictions on what the software can do. This is a non starter for many native apps.
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[ 5.9 ms ] story [ 76.0 ms ] threadEpic celebrates “the end of the Apple Tax” after appeals court win in iOS payments case
Apple wins partial reversal of sanctions in Epic Games antitrust lawsuit
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulat... (https://archive.ph/Cbi3f)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46237312
The walled garden has to end. There is no excuse for making people pay a premium price for an iPad Pro that can't run a third party web browser or do software development in any meaningful way.
Outside of a very narrow use case, the iPad product range is useless, despite the endless rantings of the brainwashed fanboys. Source: used to be one. Left the ecosystem when they started treating the RFCs like toilet paper.
> Speaking to reporters Thursday night, though, Epic founder and CEO Tim Sweeney said he believes those should be “super super minor fees,” on the order of “tens or hundreds of dollars” every time an iOS app update goes through Apple for review.
Wow, one step forward, and one step back. Good job, Epic.
The outcome is obviously going to be that Apple's store will have the most apps, with the most up to date versions, and with the most free apps/games. I'm sure Fortnite will do just fine though.
Unless I'm misunderstanding this, why would the court allow Apple to act as a gatekeeper for their competitors?
I would think making sure outside payment links aren’t scams will be more expensive than that because checking that once isn’t sufficient. Scammers will update the target of such links, so you can’t just check this at app submission time. You also will have to check from around the world, from different IP address ranges, outside California business hours, etc, because scammer are smart enough to use such info to decide whether to show their scammy page.
Also, even if it becomes ‘only’ hundreds of dollars, I guess only large companies will be able to afford providing an option for outside payments.
Is Apple actually checking outside payments for scams outside of review times? Do they check non-payment links for scams outside of review times? How often?
The point is that they should only be able to charge a fee for work they are truly doing, and it shouldn't be retaliatory.
Tens to hundreds every time an app goes through review is "super supor minor"... This is how you know Epic has the backs of all the indie devs who fret about $100/year dev membership.
Google are doing exactly the same as Apple previously were doing, mandatory from end of next month - January 28, 2026.
Their new requirements: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...
F-Droid notwithstanding using an alternative app is not a very attractive option right now as there no good alternatives. But if Valve can create an Android app store that competes with the Play store, the in principle situation is very different.
I've no idea, but I presume it's not even possible to use the Google Play purchasing API if your app isn't on the Play store.
- Apple shouldn't be able to charge for external payments, come on.
- Force prominent disclosure of refund policies. Epic Games doesn't allow them for IAP. Apple does. Epic knows exactly how predatory that is, betting some kids will find ways to spend thousands and the parents will be helpless. Ideally you'd have a law mandating refunds, but without that, there should be mandatory disclosure on the IAP screen, at least for microtransaction games. You can't have fair "competition" when you have an information asymmetry, and if these rulings don't mandate that, you'll open the floodgate for these gaming companies to screw over parents.
I swear not even Micro$oft attained this level of commitment.
Let's get them opened up next.
My understanding, at least several years ago, that Netflix was paying as much to Apple in subscription fees, as they did for their AWS hosting.
I also noticed when upgrading my Spotify account, I couldn't do that through the iphone app itself - I assumed this was because it would break TOS, or they didn't want to pay a massive chunck of the monthly subscription cost to Apple.
I mean, it's certainly not for lack of business insight. And you don't need the internet to sell applications.
If Jobs was still here, he would have fired all the fat management.
shame on you Apple, you are acting like M$!
Before this ruling:
1. Apple were prohibited from charging any fee for external/referral purchases. Now this is once again allowed and the district court will work with all parties to develop a reasonable commission.
2. External links were permitted to dominate over IAP options. Now they must have equal size, prominence and quantity.
3. Apple were prevented from showing any kind of exit screen, that is now restored (but it can't be a scare screen).
4. Apple were barred from preventing certain developers/app classes from using external links (such as those enrolled in the News or Video Partner Programs) those are now reversed and Apple can once again prevent them.
Epic/Tim Sweeney are trying to spin these recent losses as a win. It's the old marketing playbook of hoping no one reads the fine print.
it is not efficient, it doesn't incentivize high quality products, and the web proves that security / safety can be done in an open way.
A) the web is full of phishing and other scams, as well as tons of low quality garbage
B) the web achieves this security model by limiting applications to a browser sandbox, which imposes restrictions on what the software can do. This is a non starter for many native apps.
Look at the major companies aligned with Epic on this, like Match.com, and what they do.
This would be for a clear subset of the web, with strong protections.
Obviously, on this venue the question is rhetorical. But Apple's prohibition on any kind of real web competition is a problem.