Now this is Epic: Fortnite maker takes Apple fight to the European Commission and... er... Bismarck, North Dakota

Bismarck in North Dakota (population 128,949) and Brussels in Belgium (population 1.2 million) couldn't be more different. Except for one thing. Both cities are venues where Apple's App Store governance policies have faced, or are facing, intense scrutiny from lawmakers. Let's start with Bismarck, seat of the North Dakota …

[Anonymous Coward]

McAfee all around.

Forced app store fee == Forced McAfee PAID subscription. It wasn't long ago (at all) in retail that if you bought the product, the service was implied for free. Who here is downloading iOS apps on Android or vice versa?

Side note: it's good to see that China too is now writing American laws via proxy (Epic). Hey, if you're a billionaire you write laws for yourself... it's what you do.

[IGotOut]

Re: McAfee all around.

What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: McAfee all around.

Have an upvote.

[Anonymous Coward]

forgot one

"Forget semiconductors; they're all about soybeans and shale."

And skid-steer loaders. ND is home to Bobcat, the iconic little white loaders with the orange wheels. I've been told that their main plant has a surprising level of automation (due in part to a small labor pool).

[Anonymous Coward]

The N.D. bill failed to get passed

Please keep up with the news. This happened last night UK time.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/02/16/north-dakota-rejects-anti-apple-bill-drafted-by-epic-games-lobbyist

[iron]

Re: The N.D. bill failed to get passed

Please RTFA.

> Earlier this week, legislators rejected S.B 2333 [PDF]

Second paragraph too much for you?

[RM Myers]

Is Epic trying to Game the system?

What a golden and delicious Battle Royal this shall be, but far longer than a week or fortnite the Gears of War will turn. As Granny would say, this is Unreal! Ten Cents will buy a ride on this Rocket, and give you a shot to join the League of Legends.

[Throatwarbler Mangrove]

Re: Is Epic trying to Game the system?

Go to your room.

[RM Myers]

Re: Is Epic trying to Game the system?

Sorry, but sometimes you really do get what you (don't) pay for.

[JDPower]

"threatens to destroy iPhone as you know it"?

Firstly, a little over dramatic. Secondly, 'destroying' iPhone "as we know it" would not necessarily be a bad thing for consumers. (and I don't mean that in an anti Apple way, would have the same opinion towards Android, perhaps moreso)

[Cliffwilliams44]

Whenever someone uses the words, "Existential', "Systemic" or "Consensus" you know your being handed a load of cow manure!

[Anonymous Coward]

You see how Apple is good at marketing here....

... think if Microsoft had told you that a browser baked into the OS was a necessity to keep you safe and secure.... and any other browser should have not been allowed because of that....

[Claptrap314]

Re: You see how Apple is good at marketing here....

They would have been laughed out of court. M$ & "safe & secure" have NEVER been seen together in public (or private).

[needmorehare]

Apple has a strong technical argument though

On my Windows PC I have the following engines running:

* Trident (for PowerShell and Outlook)

* EdgeHTML (for anything UWP or OOBE)

* Blink (for Teams, Discord, Google Chrome and Edge)

* WebKit (for Steam and iTunes)

* QtWebEngine (for MS OneDrive and TeamViewer)

In the case of Blink, WebKit and QtWebEngine, each app often uses its own private instance of the engine bundled with the software, meaning no memory sharing as the DLLs differ.

A copy of MSN Messenger back in the day would use ~20MB RAM and reuse the Trident engine, along with every other native Windows application on the system which needed to render some HTML. Thanks to developers taking liberties we also have Electron apps (e.g. Teams) bundling private instances of Blink and V8 consuming ~300MB of RAM each and offering minimal differences in functionality to their predecessors. That's not "natural feature creep" causing said RAM use either, Skype is a native app which uses 120MB RAM.on a bad day.

Perhaps we should all be telling these half-wit devs who want to roll their own private engine instances to nobody's benefit to do one, just like Apple does.

[heyrick]

Wait, Apple talked to you?

They must be worried...

[Chairo]

Re: Wait, Apple talked to you?

When I read the line "An Apple spokesperson told The Reg:" I wondered if it is already April. So hell finally froze over and there are flying pigs in the Sky?

[Totally not a Cylon]

Epic are trying to REMOVE customer choice.

Currently we have iPhone & Android (plus others).

iPhone is a closed ecosystem, one app store one payment system one company in control.

Android is an open ecosystem, choice and freedom.

One protects its customers privacy and security the other doesn't.

I and I suspect the large majority of Apple's customers chose iPhone and Mac because of this 'walled garden' approach. One app store account, one payment method. One login to remember, Apple also has 2FA baked right in to the phone.

[RyokuMas]

Re: Epic are trying to REMOVE customer choice.

"Android is an open ecosystem, choice and freedom."

Don't know about you, but pretty much every Android phone I've encounted has been tightly coupled to Google ecosystem... and that's all proprietary.

[Snake]

Re: tightly coupled to the Google ecosystem

On Android there certainly are many apps Thad are included in which that is true. But you are not forced to use them, alternatives are allowed as usable in the system.

Also, unlike Apple you can work around quite a bit of the coupling. I do not keep my Google account on the phone, I log in exclusively to use the App Store and then remove the account. Said App Store is then completely disabled afterwards. Almost all Google apps are disabled, from Gmail to Maps. Google Play Services has *all* its permissions removed. YouTube's full data set gets cleared out on a regular basis. The Google ad ID gets reset on a regular basis. I use Firefox rather than the Chrome or the built-in browser. The only thing my Gmail account exists for is to allow Android App Store logins. Google JS scripts and cookies are blocked in my browsers. I keep location services off. Carrier Services has itspermissions removed.

Plus more.

Android gives you at least some ability to believe that you're holding off the spying data collection. Apple? Ha.

[jmch]

Re: Epic are trying to REMOVE customer choice.

The current customer choice is be fleeced by Apple or probed by Google. A choice of 2 is not a market, it's an oligopoly.

"One app store account, one payment method. One login to remember"

while it's technically possible to have multiple app stores in Android, I'm pretty sure that the vast majority of users onlyever use Play store on Android combined with their single google account. Jailbreaking and sideloading might be popular among Register readers, but in the wider population it's infinitesimaly small. So I very much doubt that having 1 app store / payment method / login features much on people's choice to buy Apple

[Smirnov]

Re: Epic are trying to REMOVE customer choice.

" So I very much doubt that having 1 app store / payment method / login features much on people's choice to buy Apple."

Having one app store and a single payment method is actually a big deal, because people trust companies like Apple or even Google a lot more to implement secure payment than app developers, which often even lack the skills to tighten security for their own apps.

The most prevalent use for side-loading outside developer use has really been for piracy, which runs rampant on Android.

For most consumers the smart phone is an appliance, not a computer, they want convenience and security most of all, and especially Apple users are also often very privacy-conscious. Sideloading or other zealot stuff ranks pretty low on their list.

[Cliffwilliams44]

Re: Epic are trying to REMOVE customer choice.

A better approach that Epic and others should take is that 30% cut in the app store and 15% cut on Apple Pay violates usury laws.

[tiggity]

Re: Epic are trying to REMOVE customer choice.

Another iffy big company (Amazon) love to promote an app that used to need sideloading on Android as not PlayStore compliant

[Cliffwilliams44]

Re: Epic are trying to REMOVE customer choice.

One ring to rule them all and in the darkness bind them!

[Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse]

So...

So, the lawsuit filed in Bismarck got that sinking feeling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So...

Nah, it was a sweet feeling. Sweet with jelly filling.

[Anonymous Coward]

Epic exclusives for mobile on EGS, then ?

Or timed exclusives, all loaded with chinese malware.

What a superb perspective if this bill passes !

[RyokuMas]

Choice...

Back in 2011, I took the plunge and started developing for mobile: Windows Phone had just landed and I was (ok, naively in retrospect) hoping that Microsoft would do the same thing as they had with Xbox and throw money at it until it stuck. So there was the whole "little fish in a tiny pond" thing and the ability to transfer my C# knowledge across that made my buy in... that plus Apple were too "walled garden", and Android was already becoming tightly coupled to Google. Anyway...

Windows Phone at that point had no in-app purchase system. So I rolled my own - a web browser control that opened onto a PayPal page on my website that handled the transaction, and the app then picked up the change from the database via a web call. Crude, but it worked. I got called a con artist by some users - with no IAP system, my apps were listed as "free" - but Microsoft never came banging on my door demanding a cut.

Similarly in my work as a web-dev - I've implemented PayPal, SagePay, WorldPay, RealEx... a whole number of different payment gateways.

So why should mobile apps not have this level of flexibility? Apple might argue that having this control allows them to ensure the "quality" of IAPs in the same way as the apps themselves - well, I call BS on that because a) there are "games" out there selling in-game currency for £99 a pop and charging different amounts for the same in-game item based on which server you happen to be on and b) it should be very easy to separate the actual item/content from the payment.

This is entirely Apple trying to keep control of how things are paid for, either so they can always take their cut, or just to prove a point about who is in charge. Either way, it's monopolistic and anti-competitive, and personally I wish Epic all the best in setting a precedent that can then open the gates to proper competition and choice.

[Smirnov]

Re: Choice...

I think you need a reality check.

Yes, iOS is a walled garden. Android on the other hand is a lot more open, and while Google maintains a strong grip on the Google Play app store there are alternatives and its easy to side-load apps. Windows Phone 10 is pretty much the same as Android (you can easily side-load apps) but that as you said Microsoft never really cared much for what happened on the Windows Phone app store.

But lets look at the facts for a moment, which are that the Apple app store generates by far the most revenue for app developers. For example, in Q3/2020 the Apple app store generated $19B revenue, which is almost *double* of what Google generated in the same time with it's Play Store ($10B)[1]. And this is despite iPhone's much smaller market share (less than 20% globally, some 48% in the US)[2].

Of that $19B, 70% ($13,.3B) ended up with app developers. Which is still more than what Google Play would pay out even if Google waved it's 30% cut.

On top of that, the Apple app store generated that $19B revenue from just 8.2B downloads while Google's $10B comes from 28.3B downloads (more then 3 times as much as Apple's), which means that Apple customers are a lot more likely to pay for an app while Android users are, for the most part, freeloaders.

All which means that, for developers, it's Apple's model which generates the most revenue.

And yet here you are and argue that it would be much better for developers if the iOS platform was more than the other platforms that earn developers a lot less money or which completely failed in the marketplace. I mean, seriously?

You asked why developers shouldn't have the freedom they had on Windows Phone, but the fact is that the platform went down the drain because it was widely shunned by consumers mostly because Microsoft did not curate its app ecosystem, which was a free for all and resulted in apps that over 99% were either crap (some shitty mobile website packaged as app) or malware (right here on my desk I still have a HP Elite x3 running WP10, I'd say few good apps on WP10 can be counted on one hand while the rest is worthless crap).

You may believe that Microsoft allowing you to implement your own payment system is a good thing. As a customer I can tell you that I think it's horrific. Not only because I don't like the inconvenience to have to enter my credit card details into all the different payment systems app developers want to use, I also don't trust you or any other app developer to implement a payment system in a secure manner in the first place, because many of you have shown to be completely inebt at security. As a customer, I like having a single payment system that the platform operator has its finger on so app devs can't pull any stupid tricks, and I like having a single refund policy from the store operator without having to deal with individual app providers. I also like that the store operator curates the content and keeps the overall quality of apps at a certain level.

As a developer, instead of complaining about "freedum" you should rather spend more time understanding your customers, because there is a reason why the iOS app store is the by far most successful despite iOS having the smaller market share.

[1] https://www.fool.com/investing/2020/10/06/apples-app-store-continues-to-crush-google-play-in

[2] https://www.idc.com/promo/smartphone-market-share/vendor

[RyokuMas]

Re: Choice...

So what you're saying is that for your convenience, you're happy paying a 30% mark-up? And that if an alternative store were available selling exactly the same stuff at a significantly lower price, you wouldn't switch?

Yes, I agree that Android users are largely freeloaders - in fact, I've had comments on here where some openly admitted it. But I'm not talking about different ecosystems here - I'm talking about different payment options on a single ecosystem. It's like shopping around for electricity suppliers or car insurance - by forcing all payments to go through the app store, Apple have prevented this and put themselves in a position where they can potentially set their cut at whatever they like. The only reason they have got away with this is because they argue cross-ecosystem.

Now, if I was an iOS developer and had the choice between the App Store's 30% cut or a hypothetical alternative payment provider who only took a 5% cut, if I charged $2 for my IAP, my share of the revenue (before tax) would be $1.40 with the former, but $1.90 with the latter. Apply that across the whole revene base and suddenly your developers would have made just over $18B - that's over 35% more revenue in the hands of the developers who are the ones actually putting in the effort to create the apps! Or - and this is why Apple don't want to relinquish control, I could sell my IAP at $2 on the App Store, but $1.75 on my alternative provider... I only get a $1.66 this time, but it's still neary 19% more revenue than the App Store and my customers are getting a better deal.

Some reality check...

As for Windows Phone - firstly, that went down the toilet because of bodged marketing, continual chopping and changing over what would work and what wouldn't, and eventually SatNad taking over, and his decision to focus on cloud. When I first started developing for mobile, its store was actually the best of the three to work with - curated (as my first few failed submissions proved), but nothing like the hoops you need to jump through with iOS... and definitely not the "pay $25 and upload whatever you like" crapfest that Google Play was at the time. Secondly, I rolled my own IAP system, not payment system... or do you believe that PayPal is not secure?

[jmch]

Security is a red herring

Yes, Apple is 100% right that having 3rd party app stores could reduce security and allow more malware*. However processing in-app payments with a 3rd-party supplier poses no security risk at all if an app has already been vetted, so this argument does not apply to the 3rd-party payment part of the proposed law. Plus, it's a free market right? iPhone owners who get their apps (possibly cheaper) from a 3rd-party market knowingly take a risk that it's not been vetted properly. Android, Google and Facebook have shown that there are literally billions of people willing to get something a little cheaper even at a slightly higher risk to security and privacy.

Apple retaliating against developers breaking with App store exclusivity is, I would argue, already falling foul of existing antitrust laws, so the part of the legislation making this specifically illegal.

*Side note - what does it say about iPhone security that the thing keeping iPhone users safe is that the apps are vetted for nasties? If there was a completely transparent view of exactly what permissions are granted to each app and exactly what each of those permissions mean, and if permissions could be granted at a very granular level in a way that the OS really enforces them on the app (particularly what they can do in the background), then the apps don't really need to be vetted since the OS can tell you at install time what permissions the app is requesting (and could even flag combinations of permissions that could be dangerous). Popular apps could easily be vetted by third parties.

[Smirnov]

Re: Security is a red herring

"Yes, Apple is 100% right that having 3rd party app stores could reduce security and allow more malware*. However processing in-app payments with a 3rd-party supplier poses no security risk at all if an app has already been vetted, so this argument does not apply to the 3rd-party payment part of the proposed law."

Yeah, right, because app developers can be trusted with implementing secure payment on their own.

"Plus, it's a free market right? iPhone owners who get their apps (possibly cheaper) from a 3rd-party market knowingly take a risk that it's not been vetted properly. Android, Google and Facebook have shown that there are literally billions of people willing to get something a little cheaper even at a slightly higher risk to security and privacy."

What Android, Goodle and Facebook have also shown is that neither of them generates anywhere near the same monetization (i.e.,m paying customers) and revenue than the Apple app store, and this despote the fact that Android's market share is huge compared to iPhone's (some 20% globally). Because at the end of the day the data clearly shows that Android users are mostly freeloaders while Apple users are much more likely to pay money (and more of it) for apps.

So what you are saying is that for developers benefit Apple should turn the iOS platform into something similar to Google Android (a freeloader platform)?

"Apple retaliating against developers breaking with App store exclusivity is, I would argue, already falling foul of existing antitrust laws, so the part of the legislation making this specifically illegal."

A lot of people argue this way, but this is always borne out of ignorance and a lack of understanding of antitrust legislation or what even constitutes a "monopoly" in a legal sense (which is quite different to how laymen understand the term).

"Side note - what does it say about iPhone security that the thing keeping iPhone users safe is that the apps are vetted for nasties? If there was a completely transparent view of exactly what permissions are granted to each app and exactly what each of those permissions mean, and if permissions could be granted at a very granular level in a way that the OS really enforces them on the app (particularly what they can do in the background), then the apps don't really need to be vetted since the OS can tell you at install time what permissions the app is requesting (and could even flag combinations of permissions that could be dangerous)."

That's a dangeroulsy naive view of platform security, because app permissions are just one part of the threat model for mobile platforms, and there have been a number of real-world examples showing that they aren't sufficient to guarantee security. Because a legitimate payment system will very likely require the exact same privileges as a sketchy one, even when the latter happily sends your card details to some guy with missing teeth in Russia.

"Popular apps could easily be vetted by third parties."

Of which Apple would have little oversight and which will deny any responsibility or claims resulting from malpractice, which would quickly tarnish the platform without Apple being able to do anything about it.

You really have a lot of great ideas how Apple (and app developers which advocate for these measures along with it) can shoot itself in the foot.

[jmch]

Re: Security is a red herring

"Yeah, right, because app developers can be trusted with implementing secure payment on their own."

You're right that most app developers can't be trusted with developing their own secure payments, but there are many trusted 3rd party payment gateways. There is no *security* reason not to allow an iPhone app to make an in-app payment through a trusted 3rd party that is not ApplePay.

You're also completely right that Apple generates a lot more cash for developers. How much is the monetisation actually due to the platform though? Apple stuff is expensive, so iPhone users typically have much more disposable income than Android users. It isn't that Android users are freeloaders, it's that the vast majority of them are cash-poor enough that they prefer ad-supported free to paid apps. So it's natural that monetisation is far greater on the Apple Store than the Play store. And if I were a developer who sells 80% of my stuff through the Apple Store, I would be rather ticked off that I was forced to use Apple's own payment gateway raking in 30%, when any 'normal' credit card processor takes around 3%. Sure there's some extra overhead for the app store, but 900% more???

Which brings us to the monopoly issue. As you point out, there are differences between what legally or 'morally' constitutes a monopoly, and even the formar isn't always clear let alone the latter. Personally I think Apple is a clear monopoly in the smartphone app space, and is abusing that position. But that's just me... we will see what the judges think of the legal perspective when the Epic case gets judged (and appealed, re-appealed, bounced around various courts and by the time it's decided it will all be moot anyway because we'll be making payments through our mind-control microchip implants)

[phogan99]

All this just so kids can resume begging for money to pay for skins and idiotic dances. With any luck when this resolves Fortnite will be dead and Tencent will be on the U.S blacklist.

I guess I am an outlier, I haven't bought an app in years....mostly cause they are usually sh*t and mobile games are a sad joke.

[Jimmy2Cows]

Crusade

Epic Games' crusade isn't really about a particular app store or mobile platform. It's about broader questions of customer choice and freedom, and how smaller firms compete with the titans that operate the mobile platforms we all rely on.

Not really, no.

They may be pitching it that way for public support, but this is simply about not wanting to pay Apple 30% to host Epic titles. No more. No less.

Epic initially agreed to the AppStore T's & C's (no choice), and got caught trying to bypass them. This isn't a comment on whether Apple needs to be reigned in or not, simply that Epic knew Apple's terms and chose to breach them.

By all means, frame Apple's restrictions and actions as anticompetitive to try to get legislators on-side, but let's not pretend this is Epic's rationale. Epic saying this is simply a ploy to pressure Apple.

[Brad16800]

Re: Crusade

Same, i'm all for options but at the end of the day this boils down to Epic's profit margin. Still might help out the little fish if they do win so I suppose yay there.