Fuck Apple. Fuck Epic too but one thing at a time.
this post was submitted on 07 Jun 2025
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Gotta love when a billionaire complains about something that prevents him from being slightly richer.
Still fees in the Epic Games Store, Tim?
Epic Games store isn't the only way you can download software on Windows, so it's not really a fair comparisons.
A healthy iOS app economy relies on competing app stores.
I’m not really sure how that would work. iOS has always been a closed system with apps needed to go through the store. The one store. And it’s thrived.
Yes you can make the argument about jailbreaking to sideload etc. but realistically it was an os designed to have a single point of entry. I’m all for abandoning fees and more source options but this is not the way to that. Nor does this help completion or open up other avenues for a competing App Store. And let’s be honest, getting into the Apple ecosystem, you should already be aware of its limitations.
It’s does give Tim Sweeney a hardon thinking he’s a winner.
E- seriously, read the article. Follow the news. All this allows for is alternative payment systems to bypass apples fees. The point I made originally is still valid as Epic will still be collecting fees on its own stores. So let’s maybe lead by example? The Epic Games Store may not be you only option on PC. However it handles more “exclusive” distribution deals than any of the other pc stores.
It sounds like you maybe haven't developed at all. Fees in store systems exist. That's not the argument. Apple was actively forcing apps to use their pay system by searching for any apps that would say things like "you can pay on our website and save 30%" even and delisting them. The reason for that is that a 10 dollar patreon subscription had to cost 13 on apple apps because apple was refusing to allow patreon (who has built their own payment system) to use it.
And what do apps that use the apple store get from this payment system? They can't monitor refunds well, can't get analytics on their user bases from the Apple app, etc. This behavior is classic predatory apple. They are adding nothing to the payment system but requiring it for all purchases in any app on the iPhone so they can make a 30% mark up. And they are relying on someone like you to parrot back that they are a "closed" ecosystem. Closed in this context means intentionally lazy due to an abusable practice. They've just always gotten away with this because they've built a user base that doesn't critical think. (I.e. intentionally shitty photos and text experience between Android and iOS. No migration tools to leave iCloud so that it's harder to ever switch to a better product. Wearables can't work with iPhones because text messages are deemed insecure despite that not being the case in every ecosystem, etc. etc ).
I'll also add that apple isn't really making this closed either. They are hamstringing apps but will strike sweetheart deals with any app that would be too big to make a problem out of this. (Think Amazon, Walmart, Netflix). So while I'm not a huge fan of epic games, at least this one CEO who could've struck a sweetheart deal, stood up and fought the entire fucked up practice that has stolen from smaller companies for over a decade.
Just because iOS has always been exclusive doesn't mean that's a good thing. If you don't want to use other stores, that should be your choice as a user or an IT dept, not the manufacturer's.
And yeah, the article is about payment systems, and the same applies. If I don't want to use Apple's payment system as a dev, I should be free to choose a competitor. If I want to provide the choice of multiple payment options to the user, again, I should have that option.
I dislike Epic Games as well because of their exclusivity deals. If I want to buy a game on another store, I should be able to make that choice, and game devs should be able to sell it on multiple platforms.
Okay. One question.
Why would company A need to accomodate any other "app store" in their product, especially if one of their product's selling point is how streamlined it is? I am not even talking about apple but in general, alas even in their case - they made it clear how it works. People accepted it and bought their product. It doesn't hurt anyone, and they are not the only player either. So why attack them now? On what basis?
Whether they made it clear isn't really the issue, the issue is two-fold:
- is it anti-competitive? If so, it's an anti-trust issue
- what does the user get in return? For a contract to be valid, it needs to benefit both parties
I answered the first below, so I'll focus on the second here.
It doesn't hurt anyone
Not having options always hurts competition, and that hurts the consumer.
For me, it comes down to the idea of ownership. Do you really own your device if you can't install what you want on it? Do you really own your app if you can't pick the payment processors you want to support?
I get the value in being able to lock your device down and block payment processors you don't trust, but that should be up to the user or the IT dept at your org. To truly own your device you need to be able to make those choices.
Here's what I think is reasonable:
- Apple requires apps to include Apple Pay (or whatever) as a payment processor if they release through the App Store
- devices ship "locked down" by default, with the option to allow third party app stores if the user chooses; this should be presented as an option on first boot or if the options there changes
- Apple should not be able to force app devs to use a particular payment processor for in-app purchases, though Apple can deny an app for not charging enough at purchase time
To me, that sounds competitive, respects the idea of ownership, and still gives Apple the high likelihood of continuing to make money hand over fist because most people won't change the default.
Why would company A need to accomodate any other "app store" in their product, especially if one of their product's selling point is how streamlined it is?
Why should Microsoft allow for other browsers to be installed on Windows? Why should Google allow for other search engines being selectable on Android and in Chrome? The reason in all these cases is the same: it is anti-competitive, and creates a monopoly. This results in unfairly high costs to users, where these users are 3rd party software developers or end users. Due to this countries have laws against this.
Companies obviously wouldn't want to accommodate others in ways that cost them money, but that does not make it morally acceptable from a societal point of view.
But you are not enforced to use Windows or Android. Closed ecosystem is part of the product in this case. Nobody stops anyone else from creating, for example, Linux. So how is it anti-competetive?
It comes down to market share. For smart phones, you basically have two options for OS, and Apple is dominant in many markets. For desktops, Microsoft's position is even more dominant. When you have such a dominant position, there's a lot of room to abuse that position, so the more restrictions you should have on being able to abuse that position.
Linux has a vanishingly small market position vs Windows and Android/iOS, so it's not really a competitor when it comes to anti-trust.
But part of the reason Apple is dominant is their closed garden approach - that is literally part of their product. I cannot understand how that's a bad thing. For me it's akin to a flute manufacturer producing flutes and everything is okay until they get popular. Suddenly they are hated because they don't produce flutes incorporating parts from different manufacturers? Even if they produce them to allow exchanging the parts?
Same for Microsoft and their Internet Explorer case. I didn't understand back then I don't understand now why they lost lawsuit if they didn't, IIRC, block you from installing anything else.
It would be different matter for me if it was for example Windows explictly blocking you from downloading another browser than Internet Explorer. That's abuse. But just having a default made by the same company being bad?
Apple is dominant is their closed garden approach
I really don't think that's true, I think Apple became dominant through being first to market, having attractive design (was largely sold as a fashion/luxury item), and attracting devs early on (mostly through being first to market). Most of the value of the App Store was the quality of app reviews, which was due to developer fees (raise barrier to releasing trash) and actual app reviews, and that's how Apple earned their 30% cut. Since iPhones were a luxury item, they attracted people willing to actually spend money on apps, which attracted more developers.
I really can't see how not having other options somehow improves the attractiveness of iOS. Having high quality apps on the App Store made it more attractive, sure, but it didn't make other app stores unwanted, in fact not being able to side load apps/stores has been a complaint since pretty much the beginning.
Nobody is saying Apple is bad because they're popular, they're saying Apple is bad because they're anti-competitive.
I didn’t understand back then I don’t understand now why they lost lawsuit if they didn’t, IIRC, block you from installing anything else.
Microsoft restricted access to internal APIs that made the browser work a lot faster, so other browsers would always be slower and a worse experience vs Internet Explorer because Microsoft prevented them from getting the most out of the hardware.
You could install an alternative, sure, but it would be hamstrung and most would blame the browser, not MS.
Having a default wasn't the problem, Microsoft still has a default browser to this day and it's totally fine. Being anticompetitive, however, isn't fine.
Did not know about the API. This clears a lot, thanks.
And about closed garden being wanted - if evrything goes through the people who made the thing, then these things are guaranteed to work on the thing. No wondering, no thinking, it just works. And such closed and tight thing was something I heard from people boasting iphones as best thing.
That's mostly copium.
There are some benefits to Apple's ecosystem, such as iMessage and iCloud working across devices, but that has nothing to so with the App Store, but Apple's first party apps. The App Store certainly has value through its audits, but that could still be a thing with rival stores existing on the platform.
What harm does having more options for installing apps have for iPhone users? If they don't want to use them, they don't have to. Do it like Android and tell users that those apps aren't reviewed by Apple and could cause problems, but only the first time (or perhaps the first time per source).
The flute doesn't make for a good example, as the end user can take it and modify it as they wish, including third party parts.
If we force it: It would be if the manufacturer made it such that all (even third party) parts for These flutes can only be distributed through their store, and they use this restriction to force any third party to comply with additional requirements.
The key problem is isn't including third party parts, it is actively blocking the usage of third party parts, forcing additional rules (which affect existing markets, like payment processors) upon them, making use of control and market dominance to accomplish this.
The Microsoft case was, in my view, weaker than this case against Apple, but their significant market dominance in the desktop OS market made it such that it was deemed anti-competitive anyways. It probably did not help that web standards suffered greatly when MS was at the helm, and making a competitive compatible browser was nigh impossible: most websites were designed for IE, using IE specific tech, effectively locking users into using IE. Because all users were using IE, developing a website using different tech was effectively useless, as users would, for other websites, end up using IE anyways. As IE was effectively the Windows browser (ignoring the brief period for IE for Mac...), this effectively ensured the Windows dominance too. Note that, without market dominance, websites would not pander specifically to IE, and this specific tie-in would be much less problematic.
In the end, Google ended IE's reign by using Google Chrome, advertising it using the Google search engine's reach. But if Microsoft had locked down the OS, like Apple does, and required everything to go through their 'app store'. I don't doubt we would have ended up with a similar browser engine restriction that Apple has, with all browsers being effectively a wrapper around the exact same underlying browser.