Antitrust laws have been a thing since the past 100+ years. Epic's argument is that Apple and Google's policies violate those laws.
You can look at this as retaliation for the lawsuit, yeah. You can also look at it as Apple deciding to stop doing business with a company that knowingly broke the rules of their platform in a bad faith move for the sole purpose of suing them.
If Apple was some tiny company, then sure I'd agree. But Apple is a trillion dollars company with billions of devices sold and total control of software distribution. The same rules don't really apply.
I agree. Samsung is terrifying and I'd really like to see them broken up. Not least of all because in a world of corporate dystopia, they are one of the worst offenders. They are the Chaebol cliche.
While I fully agree with your point, I'd be lying if I said it happening to Sweeney didn't entertain me immensely.
I can't sanction such petty schadenfreude and totally didn't derive a modicum of pleasure from it.
yep, punitive action for filing a lawsuit plus restraining epic from selling unreal engine to ios/mac devs isn't a good look for a company fighting so many antitrust suits and complaints.
the antitrust actions were happening before this fortnite situation. epic is just one of the few with enough money to do something about it.
quite possible they baited apple into a blatant antitrust action by making a move purely to harm a competitor with no profit motive or to provide for clients. if not, apple did it for them anyway
Hypothetically, but Apple has a just-as-good counterargument in saying that removing the dev tools is just an extension of what happens when you're banned from the App Store. I don't think we've ever seen a developer this big get their app outright pulled so there's no precedent that can betray their actions.
I don't know, Apple has a billionaire legal department, I know Epic prepared for this battle but I highly doubt that Apple is now acting lightly or that they are just taking the bait.quite possible they baited apple into a blatant antitrust action by making a move purely to harm a competitor with no profit motive or to provide for clients. if not, apple did it for them anyway
I think such an argument is not completely unreasonable to make, if you accept the premises that having an Apple or Android smartphone is almost necessary for public life these days (given e.g. banking apps only available for those two platforms this isn't completely outlandish IMHO), and that Apple and Google therefore form a duopoly for an essential service. In such a case there are a few reasonable actions to take, regulation is one of them, splitting them up is another.
Epic could also make their EpicPhone with EpicOS by forking Android and not use Google stuff as well. But IMO they want to have their cake and eat it too.
It is our stuff the moment we buy it.
We (the company I work at) bought it for spare change!
tl;dr Tumblr was like the HQ for all porns gifs of the world, until they decided to ban it for corporate reasons. The backlash was immense, and suddenly it lost most users in protest.
The fact remain that it will install eventually. Usually far sooner for most users and versions of windows who can't delay that much.
What Copons Said! To even allow the Tumblr app on app store they had to remove the ability to find porn on it, and this was way before Tumblr destroyed itself. I see this with other apps also, like photography apps, they filter out all nudes on the apps.
Hell yeah! Best of luck! Haven't found any good replacement for Tumblr.
It’s operating as a shell of itself at this point, it lost something like 20% of the active users after they removed the porn in December 2018. The main reasons for removing all NSFW content were not just to get onto more mobile devices but also as a way of generating value for a company acquisition. In 2013 Yahoo bought the site for $1.1 billion, in 2019 they sold it for less than $2 million.
About $3 million, but yeah that's pretty much it.
eh i don't think restraint of trade is a good counterargument to "you broke a policy on one app". it's not legal to unreasonably prevent a company from doing business with another company as a condition of a contract, which they are now doing to any developer or special effects artist using unreal engine on ios and macs.
i don't think apple is acting lightly either. they are attempting to starve the beast so that epic will not be able to pursue this lawsuit. if it never gets into court or if it's settled then they never have to own up to any action they are currently taking.
Let's be real, can Apple really starve Epic? It will make a dent, a big one, sure but Fortnite revenue stream coming from PC and consoles added with UE licensing fees also coming from PC and consoles are more than capable of keeping Epic well fed for decades.
[UWSL][/UWSL]
I’m not arguing the ethics, we all agree there. I’m arguing the legal practicality. Epic is going to have a hard time acting like the dev tool revocation isn’t related to intentionally breaking Apple’s ToS as a PR stunt in court.
But how many other apps have intentionally broken the ToS to trigger a removal to trigger a lawsuit and PR campaign?
I feel Apple would've treated Epic the same as Basecamp had Epic not publicly mocked them, dragged their brand through the mud, tried to sicc the Fortnite audience at them and purposefully and premeditatively broke the App Store's ToS to stage this scenario.probably because no one else filed an antitrust lawsuit...but pulling a company's entire dev account and (potentially illegally) restraining trade on the platforms because they filed an antitrust lawsuit doesn't actually put apple on any better legal standing in regards to antitrust
also note that Hey got dinged by tos but also got the required 14 day review period to change their app. epic did not. not saying it's good or bad but imo it shows that apple is more concerned about the actions of epic than of basecamp. enough to break their own contracts, harm their own clients, and potentially break the law as well just to show dominance of their own platforms and no other reason. not exactly the things that look good when under multiple investigations for antitrust.
[UWSL][/UWSL]probably because no one else filed an antitrust lawsuit...but pulling a company's entire dev account and (potentially illegally) restraining trade on the platforms because they filed an antitrust lawsuit doesn't actually put apple on any better legal standing in regards to antitrust
I dunno, I'm not a lawyer, let alone an US one!
Not quite!
I think it deserved at least a 30%.also that pun is -5 points
