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This is why devs are afraid of publicly criticizing Apple, let alone testifying against them in the court. Apple has shown that they will then prevent you from

This is why devs are afraid of publicly criticizing Apple, let alone testifying against them in the court. Apple has shown that they will then prevent you from accessing 50%+ of the US market. In short Apple is a bully, has been for more than a decade now, and it has worked out well for them.

jillyboel 1y ago
This is why apple needs to be broken up into a software company and a hardware company. They're so, so clearly abusing their current position.
- horsawlarway 1y ago
  Just take the app store away. From all of them - take it away from Google too. Frankly - Microsoft never actually got much buy in for their store, but take it away from them as well. Hardware that has only a single approved distribution channel for software, that is owned by someone other than the owner of the hardware, shouldn't be legal. Further - if you own a piece of hardware, you legally should own EVERY fucking key. If there's a lock in that device, hardware or software based, that has a key - you get a damn copy. --- Some physical comparisons that show how outrageously unethical this setup is: You buy a home, but your realtor gets the only copy of the keys. "Don't worry" they say, "I'll just pop by and open er up whenever you need to get in and out. Oh, and by the way, I don't like Ikea - so I won't open the door if you're trying to move Ikea furniture in. Great working with you guys, enjoy your new home!". You've just bought a new car, you tried turning into your neighborhood, but suddenly the car stops. You call the dealer: "Oh, I see your neighborhood road was paved by PavingCo, They don't pay our manufacturers' yearly inspection fee, so we can't certify that our car can safely drive on that road. So we disable it when the GPS detects you're about to drive there." --- This is fundamentally about ownership. Hardware manufacturers are playing with utter fire here, because this is the first time in history there exists enough infrastructure that a device can phone home and ask "Is this ok?" to the maker, rather than operating as the owner desires. As far as I'm concerned - you don't own a device that does that. You're just renting it, and the manufacturer can and will extort you with rent-seeking behavior at EVERY turn. Phones are only the first stop - this is going to spread to absolutely everything that uses electricity unless this gets extinguished real fast. We're already starting to see the same games in Cars, IoT devices, TVs, etc... I'm eagerly awaiting the day my drill stops working because I'm not trying to drill the manufacturers' overpriced screws with it...
FirmwareBurner 1y ago
This is why the EU is hitting apple and why the US needs to. Too many devs have their livelihood at the mercy of Apple's(and Google's) Damocles's sword. At least with Google you can easily sideload. If even megacorpos like Epic have issues with Apple imagine what being an indie dev or small company will be like.
- DanielHB 1y ago
  Apple gets around this by saying they are "Promising to Create 30000 american jobs" which the politicians then peddle in their election campaigns. But then it never happens because it is all a promise... The politicians of course only care about the PR stunt and give them concessions either way.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    A youtuber did a dissection of all the big tech jobs Trump "created" with his talks with big tech, and all of the new US jobs announced by the likes of Apple or Nvidia were jobs they were planning to create anyway, before Trump got elected Trump is just taking credit for it as if he did anything. Job creation, retention or destruction is a powerful political tool that companies use everywhere as leverage to get politicians to do what they want. You can see the auto sector in Germany. So the US defending Apple is understandable. All countries protect their domestic big players.
- bzzzt 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - jillyboel 1y ago
    > Porn sites suing because Apple won't allow them to put apps in their store and that's costing them their livelihood Great example, actually. Why do you think it's okay for apple to unilaterally decide what more than a billion people are allowed to use their device for? Is it because you are projecting your own fears and insecurities on everyone else?
high_na_euv 1y ago
Imagine if Microsoft banned Steam Or Rockstar on Windows The outrage would be massive, that would be giant scandal
- xethos 1y ago
  Microsoft locking out third-party applications with Windows S, and/or pushing users to Microsoft's own game store, was actually a real threat to Valve. That's one of the major reasons Proton is a thing: Valve realized they were entirely dependant on a party they had no leverage over, so they built and invested in Linux. Should Microsoft ever make a move now, Valve isn't completely at their mercy.
  - high_na_euv 1y ago
    But it didnt happen
  - pjmlp 1y ago
    Valve is still at the Microsoft's mercy to tolerate Proton's existence. They should have made it attractive for developers already targeting UNIX like systems, with PlayStation and Android NDK, to actually bother shipping GNU/Linux builds of their games. Instead, they translate Windows games.
    - mystified5016 1y ago
      > Valve is still at the Microsoft's mercy to tolerate Proton's existence. No, they aren't. Valve is way, way too big a bear for Microsoft to poke. If they banned Steam, the backlash would be severe. It would also result in even more users switching to Linux to keep access to the games they've already paid for, and which work under Linux due to proton. Microsoft is at Valve's mercy. Valve doesn't need Microsoft, but Microsoft very badly needs Steam around to keep gamers on windows.
      - pjmlp 1y ago
        XBox is one of the biggest publishers, where would all those Windows gamers go? To a platform emulating Windows? (no need to correct me on how WINE works) If at all they would be migrating to Nintendo and Sony consoles, if not having second thoughts about XBox consoles and cloud/GeForce Now. Additionally, most of what Valve stands for will be gone the day Gabe is no longer at the company, enjoy while it lasts.
shadowfiend 1y ago
Epic didn't publicly criticize Apple or testify against them in court to get into this situation, they willfully and deliberately broke the legal developer agreement that they signed to get press coverage (they could have filed suit on the anti-steering rules regardless). Not only did they do this, they then filed suit to say that Apple shouldn't have been allowed to suspend their account—and lost (though arguably won the broader war since anti-steering is currently dead). There are a ton of things Apple is doing wrong around developer stuff and anti-steering rules and all of it, but I dunno, I feel pretty good about them saying to a specific developer, “actually, you've shown yourself to be willing to ignore the legal agreements you sign, so we're not going to be doing business with you any longer“. Epic's stunt should cost them, if they then want to talk about how they've martyred themselves for developers everywhere. Good work, but a martyr who comes back to life isn't really a martyr, right?
- aaomidi 1y ago
  Yeah this type of behavior will eventually get Apple broken into two. And they’ll deserve it.
- HDThoreaun 1y ago
  Apples terms of service were illegal. Illegal agreements are not binding
  - shadowfiend 1y ago
    While I don’t claim to know the finer points of the law, I believe the judge was pretty crystal clear that Apple was 100% within their powers to kill the developer account that Epic used to do this.
napkin 1y ago
But you’ve left out part of the narrative: Developer pushes an App update which purposefully violates the TOS, expecting rejection- having planned in advance to kick off an expensive PR campaign and legal battle. I don’t deny Apple’s pettiness… Nonetheless, can you provide a different example of why devs are afraid of publicly criticizing Apple?
- benoau 1y ago
  And you've left out part of the narrative: the terms that Epic broke were illegal in the state of California. Hooli's contract is thus invalid. As for different reason, how about this official policy from ~2015: > If your App is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps. https://web.archive.org/web/20150411105225/https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150411105225/https://developer...
  - napkin 1y ago
    Yeah, not arguing the legal specifics. It’s good for Apple to be challenged in court. But Epic did go out of their way to ‘trash’ Apple in the press. For this and other reasons I can’t generally relate to Epic. (e.g. targeting kids with microtransactions, burning piles of money on Epic Games exclusives.) I would also not want to do business with Epic
    - benoau 1y ago
      Apple is the primary beneficiary by far of games like Fortnite because they allow and tax them in aggregate, even without Fortnite they offer thousands of games for kids to spend a grand or ten in. The legality of the tactics employed by the gaming industry, that can only occur with the platforms complicity, are being challenged in Europe which is hopefully going to end a lot of these practices and derail both Tims grifting off children and cultivated addicts. https://www.beuc.eu/reports/game-over-consumers-fight-fairer-game-purchases https://www.beuc.eu/reports/game-over-consumers-fight-fairer...
    - 1y ago
isodev 1y ago
I think a big portion of the problem is that Apple is both the platform (phone) and the store. Similar to Google and Chrome for the web, it creates a conflict. Bad faith movies like slapping warnings, geo blocking dev tools (remember you have to be in Europe to be able to develop an alternative web browser engine lol), limiting side loading etc … feels like “let’s milk the cashcow until people don’t need iPhones anymore”. The longer they can drag it the better. Disappointing tbh.
TechRemarker 1y ago
They didn’t ban them for publicly criticizing, they banned them for intentionally breaking the rules. So yes, this makes devs more afraid of knowingly breaking the rules like how jail makes people more afraid of breaking the law. And yes fornite team has been quite a bully in their incessant tweets but glad to see Apple not stopping to their level.
- apple4ever 1y ago
  Yes they broke bad rules and were right to do so. Devs are more afraid of breaking the rules because the rules change all the time, and they know Apple is petty and cares more about money than being good to customers and developers.
  - burnerthrow008 1y ago
    Should they also break the rules against user tracking without consent? Just curious how far you would take this.
gmerc 1y ago
They did this even to Facebook back in the day, primarily holding app updates hostage to kill Instant Games

jillyboel 1y ago

This is why apple needs to be broken up into a software company and a hardware company. They're so, so clearly abusing their current position.

horsawlarway 1y ago
Just take the app store away. From all of them - take it away from Google too. Frankly - Microsoft never actually got much buy in for their store, but take it away from them as well. Hardware that has only a single approved distribution channel for software, that is owned by someone other than the owner of the hardware, shouldn't be legal. Further - if you own a piece of hardware, you legally should own EVERY fucking key. If there's a lock in that device, hardware or software based, that has a key - you get a damn copy. --- Some physical comparisons that show how outrageously unethical this setup is: You buy a home, but your realtor gets the only copy of the keys. "Don't worry" they say, "I'll just pop by and open er up whenever you need to get in and out. Oh, and by the way, I don't like Ikea - so I won't open the door if you're trying to move Ikea furniture in. Great working with you guys, enjoy your new home!". You've just bought a new car, you tried turning into your neighborhood, but suddenly the car stops. You call the dealer: "Oh, I see your neighborhood road was paved by PavingCo, They don't pay our manufacturers' yearly inspection fee, so we can't certify that our car can safely drive on that road. So we disable it when the GPS detects you're about to drive there." --- This is fundamentally about ownership. Hardware manufacturers are playing with utter fire here, because this is the first time in history there exists enough infrastructure that a device can phone home and ask "Is this ok?" to the maker, rather than operating as the owner desires. As far as I'm concerned - you don't own a device that does that. You're just renting it, and the manufacturer can and will extort you with rent-seeking behavior at EVERY turn. Phones are only the first stop - this is going to spread to absolutely everything that uses electricity unless this gets extinguished real fast. We're already starting to see the same games in Cars, IoT devices, TVs, etc... I'm eagerly awaiting the day my drill stops working because I'm not trying to drill the manufacturers' overpriced screws with it...

FirmwareBurner 1y ago

This is why the EU is hitting apple and why the US needs to. Too many devs have their livelihood at the mercy of Apple's(and Google's) Damocles's sword. At least with Google you can easily sideload. If even megacorpos like Epic have issues with Apple imagine what being an indie dev or small company will be like.

DanielHB 1y ago
Apple gets around this by saying they are "Promising to Create 30000 american jobs" which the politicians then peddle in their election campaigns. But then it never happens because it is all a promise... The politicians of course only care about the PR stunt and give them concessions either way.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  A youtuber did a dissection of all the big tech jobs Trump "created" with his talks with big tech, and all of the new US jobs announced by the likes of Apple or Nvidia were jobs they were planning to create anyway, before Trump got elected Trump is just taking credit for it as if he did anything. Job creation, retention or destruction is a powerful political tool that companies use everywhere as leverage to get politicians to do what they want. You can see the auto sector in Germany. So the US defending Apple is understandable. All countries protect their domestic big players.
bzzzt 1y ago
[flagged]
- jillyboel 1y ago
  > Porn sites suing because Apple won't allow them to put apps in their store and that's costing them their livelihood Great example, actually. Why do you think it's okay for apple to unilaterally decide what more than a billion people are allowed to use their device for? Is it because you are projecting your own fears and insecurities on everyone else?

high_na_euv 1y ago

Imagine if Microsoft banned Steam Or Rockstar on Windows The outrage would be massive, that would be giant scandal

xethos 1y ago
Microsoft locking out third-party applications with Windows S, and/or pushing users to Microsoft's own game store, was actually a real threat to Valve. That's one of the major reasons Proton is a thing: Valve realized they were entirely dependant on a party they had no leverage over, so they built and invested in Linux. Should Microsoft ever make a move now, Valve isn't completely at their mercy.
- high_na_euv 1y ago
  But it didnt happen
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Valve is still at the Microsoft's mercy to tolerate Proton's existence. They should have made it attractive for developers already targeting UNIX like systems, with PlayStation and Android NDK, to actually bother shipping GNU/Linux builds of their games. Instead, they translate Windows games.
  - mystified5016 1y ago
    > Valve is still at the Microsoft's mercy to tolerate Proton's existence. No, they aren't. Valve is way, way too big a bear for Microsoft to poke. If they banned Steam, the backlash would be severe. It would also result in even more users switching to Linux to keep access to the games they've already paid for, and which work under Linux due to proton. Microsoft is at Valve's mercy. Valve doesn't need Microsoft, but Microsoft very badly needs Steam around to keep gamers on windows.
    - pjmlp 1y ago
      XBox is one of the biggest publishers, where would all those Windows gamers go? To a platform emulating Windows? (no need to correct me on how WINE works) If at all they would be migrating to Nintendo and Sony consoles, if not having second thoughts about XBox consoles and cloud/GeForce Now. Additionally, most of what Valve stands for will be gone the day Gabe is no longer at the company, enjoy while it lasts.

shadowfiend 1y ago

Epic didn't publicly criticize Apple or testify against them in court to get into this situation, they willfully and deliberately broke the legal developer agreement that they signed to get press coverage (they could have filed suit on the anti-steering rules regardless). Not only did they do this, they then filed suit to say that Apple shouldn't have been allowed to suspend their account—and lost (though arguably won the broader war since anti-steering is currently dead). There are a ton of things Apple is doing wrong around developer stuff and anti-steering rules and all of it, but I dunno, I feel pretty good about them saying to a specific developer, “actually, you've shown yourself to be willing to ignore the legal agreements you sign, so we're not going to be doing business with you any longer“. Epic's stunt should cost them, if they then want to talk about how they've martyred themselves for developers everywhere. Good work, but a martyr who comes back to life isn't really a martyr, right?

aaomidi 1y ago
Yeah this type of behavior will eventually get Apple broken into two. And they’ll deserve it.
HDThoreaun 1y ago
Apples terms of service were illegal. Illegal agreements are not binding
- shadowfiend 1y ago
  While I don’t claim to know the finer points of the law, I believe the judge was pretty crystal clear that Apple was 100% within their powers to kill the developer account that Epic used to do this.

napkin 1y ago

But you’ve left out part of the narrative: Developer pushes an App update which purposefully violates the TOS, expecting rejection- having planned in advance to kick off an expensive PR campaign and legal battle. I don’t deny Apple’s pettiness… Nonetheless, can you provide a different example of why devs are afraid of publicly criticizing Apple?

benoau 1y ago
And you've left out part of the narrative: the terms that Epic broke were illegal in the state of California. Hooli's contract is thus invalid. As for different reason, how about this official policy from ~2015: > If your App is rejected, we have a Review Board that you can appeal to. If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps. https://web.archive.org/web/20150411105225/https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150411105225/https://developer...
- napkin 1y ago
  Yeah, not arguing the legal specifics. It’s good for Apple to be challenged in court. But Epic did go out of their way to ‘trash’ Apple in the press. For this and other reasons I can’t generally relate to Epic. (e.g. targeting kids with microtransactions, burning piles of money on Epic Games exclusives.) I would also not want to do business with Epic
  - benoau 1y ago
    Apple is the primary beneficiary by far of games like Fortnite because they allow and tax them in aggregate, even without Fortnite they offer thousands of games for kids to spend a grand or ten in. The legality of the tactics employed by the gaming industry, that can only occur with the platforms complicity, are being challenged in Europe which is hopefully going to end a lot of these practices and derail both Tims grifting off children and cultivated addicts. https://www.beuc.eu/reports/game-over-consumers-fight-fairer-game-purchases https://www.beuc.eu/reports/game-over-consumers-fight-fairer...
  - 1y ago

isodev 1y ago

I think a big portion of the problem is that Apple is both the platform (phone) and the store. Similar to Google and Chrome for the web, it creates a conflict. Bad faith movies like slapping warnings, geo blocking dev tools (remember you have to be in Europe to be able to develop an alternative web browser engine lol), limiting side loading etc … feels like “let’s milk the cashcow until people don’t need iPhones anymore”. The longer they can drag it the better. Disappointing tbh.

TechRemarker 1y ago

They didn’t ban them for publicly criticizing, they banned them for intentionally breaking the rules. So yes, this makes devs more afraid of knowingly breaking the rules like how jail makes people more afraid of breaking the law. And yes fornite team has been quite a bully in their incessant tweets but glad to see Apple not stopping to their level.

apple4ever 1y ago
Yes they broke bad rules and were right to do so. Devs are more afraid of breaking the rules because the rules change all the time, and they know Apple is petty and cares more about money than being good to customers and developers.
- burnerthrow008 1y ago
  Should they also break the rules against user tracking without consent? Just curious how far you would take this.

gmerc 1y ago

They did this even to Facebook back in the day, primarily holding app updates hostage to kill Instant Games