[supernova87a]

Some choice sections:

"...On Thursday, August 13, 2020, Epic Games made the calculated decision to breach its allegedly illegal agreements with Apple by activating allegedly hidden code in Fortnite allowing Epic Games to collect IAPs directly. In response, Apple removed Fortnite from the App Store, where it remains unavailable to the date of this Order. Later that same day, Epic Games filed this action and began a pre-planned, and blistering, marketing campaign against Apple... "

"...The Court finds that with respect to Epic Games’ motion as to its games, including Fortnite, Epic Games has not yet demonstrated irreparable harm. The current predicament appears of its own making... Epic Games admits that the technology exists to “fix” the problem easily by deactivating the “hotfix.” That Epic Games would prefer not to litigate in that context does not mean that “irreparable harm” exists..."

"...Epic Games moves this Court to allow it to access Apple’s platform for free while it makes money on each purchase made on the same platform. While the Court anticipates experts will opine that Apple’s 30 percent take is anti-competitive, the Court doubts that an expert would suggest a zero percent alternative. Not even Epic Games gives away its products for free..."

Ouch.

Separately, the aspect of Apple pulling keys for the developer (e.g. Unreal Engine) platform access was granted a preliminary injunction. Which seems reasonable.

I guess Epic has a couple days to decide whether to give in or not: "Fortnite’s next season starts on Thursday, August 27, 2020, and will require an update of the game to play."

[modeless]

How about this one:

"with respect to the Unreal Engine and the developer tools, [...] the contracts related to those applications were not breached. Apple does not persuade that it will be harmed [...] Apple has chosen to act severely, and by doing so, has impacted non-parties, and a third-party developer ecosystem. In this regard, the equities do weigh against Apple.

Apple's behavior here was not reasonable and definitely deserved this restraining order.

[threeseed]

Epic could have used the same developer account for both Unreal Engine and Fornite development knowing full well that Apple would have to either allow both or ban both.

They had ads and lawsuits ready when they pulled the trigger on this chain of events so it wouldn't surprise me if they made sure that the Unreal Engine issue was included.

[scq]

They didn't use the same developer account, if I'm reading the order correctly the developer accounts used for Unreal Engine and Fortnite did not even belong to the same legal entity.

* Epic Games, Inc. develops Fortnite and has an Apple developer account that it is released under.

* Epic Games International, S.a.r.l. develops Unreal Engine and holds its own Apple developer account.

[StavrosK]

Apple can ban just Fortnite (and any other infringing app) a la carte, without banning the entire account, so they wouldn't need to ban or allow both in the first place.

[high_density]

I don't think Epic use the same account on purpose -- I mean, why pay x2 the fees?

[madeofpalk]

well, the fee's are only like $99/year. a rounding error, really.

[trumpeta]

"...Epic Games moves this Court to allow it to access Apple’s platform for free while it makes money on each purchase made on the same platform. While the Court anticipates experts will opine that Apple’s 30 percent take is anti-competitive, the Court doubts that an expert would suggest a zero percent alternative. Not even Epic Games gives away its products for free..."

Apple is arguing as if accessing their platform for free was a crime. This makes sense, since they have costs associated with reviews, code signing and distribution. But that is of their own making. Walled gardens should be outlawed.

[ben_w]

It being a walled garden is the only way I’m willing to trust it for accessing all my account recovery emails, my 2FA SMSes, my bank details, and the sensor package that can listen to everything I do while GPS tracking me and monitoring my heart rate and gaze if I happen to be holding it where I can see the screen.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I like being stuck with an American cultural hegemony that says sexual content is forbidden, or that needs an encryption export licence from the USA government for apps written by non-Americans for non-Americans, and which still demands annual reporting to the US government for using https.

I’m happy with any walls that meet basic security standards, but I do want a wall, even if it would be nice to choose which wall.

[roblabla]

The walled garden is not what protects your email, 2FA SMSes or bank details. The OS sandboxing and permissions system do that. The two are often conflated, but the two concerns are orthogonal really.

Heck, you could easily imagine a system where software distributed outside the app store can only access a subset of perms if security is such a concern, and that'd still be less anti-competitive

[threeseed]

Due to the way iOS works (dynamic dispatch) private APIs can only be prevented through an App Store review process.

And many of those APIs can be used to extract enough information to fingerprint the device, determine your location or steal your data e.g. accessing the list of WiFi networks or browser history.

So no. The two concerns are very much related.

[brmgb]

> Due to the way iOS works (dynamic dispatch) private APIs can only be prevented through an App Store review process.

That's complete nonsense.

Dynamic dispatch has nothing to do with the ability or not of a program to access API. Dynamic dispatch is the selection at runtime of the correct version of a polymorphic function. Obviously, you can sandbox programs written in languages using dynamic dispatch.

[threeseed]

Be curious how you plan to prevent access to Apple's private APIs in Objective-C, which uses dynamic dispatching, without breaking existing code.

I am sure Apple would love to know how you've managed to solve this.

[t0mas88]

You could easily argue that Apple has built an OS that is deeply broken and insecure if they aren't able to technically enforce permissions of apps to do certain things. Virtually any other OS has that capability.

[gridlockd]

They can't be prevented reliably even through the App Store process - that's simply impossible.

The point of a private API not security, it's to distinguish between the public interface that is meant to be stable and implementation details that might change.

They might do some rudimentary checks to catch obvious usage of private APIs, but it's not part of the security model and still apps show up on the App Store that use private APIs, all the time.

[appleflaxen]

they are related because apple plugged one process into the other.

but there is nothing intrinsic to their operation that requires it, and apple could un-plug it.

this is like apple arguing that IE is central to the fabric of windows, and can't be removed during the european antitrust suit.

it's dishonest, but apple will likely make the same claim.

[Joeri]

Heck, you could easily imagine a system where software distributed outside the app store can only access a subset of perms if security is such a concern, and that'd still be less anti-competitive

I think this system is called the world wide web.

Apple would have a much stronger case if mobile safari were a first class PWA platform, instead of being almost useless for PWA's. Then the choice would be: make a PWA and live in the browser sandbox, or go through approval and be on the app store.

[madeofpalk]

I really don't think so. there are many classes of applications that just do not work on the web platform.

A podcast player or music and video streaming app, or a game like fortnite, are not going to work as web sites.

[rimliu]

   > but the two concerns are orthogonal really.

They are not, really.

[daveoc64]

Your stance seems nonsensical to me, given the fact that Epic was clearly able to sneak something that violates the rules past Apple's review process.

It's clearly not possible for Apple to actually check all functionality of every app, particularly as it's so easy to hide it or to put it in an embedded web view.

In this case, Epic managed to put an alternative payment method in - but they are a trusted brand, so there's no real security issue overall.

But could some other developer do the same thing and harvest payment details? Of course.

[mdoms]

> It being a walled garden is the only way I’m willing to trust it for accessing all my account recovery emails, my 2FA SMSes, my bank details, and the sensor package that can listen to everything I do while GPS tracking me and monitoring my heart rate and gaze if I happen to be holding it where I can see the screen.

Sorry I'm not following. What does any of this have to do with the app store?

[StavrosK]

The problem here is that the majority of discussion around this conflates the iPhone with the App Store. The App Store is a platform, it's fine if Apple wants to charge for curation, distribution, etc.

The iPhone is a hardware device, not a platform, and it's not fine if Apple wants to be the sole guardian of it. Even the court response here conflated the two. Epic doesn't want to be on the App Store for free (that wouldn't be fair), but it does want to be allowed to install its software on iPhones for free (that is fair).

[j-james]

> Not even Epic Games gives away its products for free...

Do... do they not?

The point being made in that paragraph seems valid regardless, but that's a strange comparison to end with - is Fortnite not free-to-play on Apple devices? It certainly is on all other platforms I've seen it on.

[zapzupnz]

Fortnite is the highest grossing free-to-play game, and the Epic store also takes a cut of games sold on their store.

It's not 30% but the actual amount doesn't matter in the context of that particular part of the order.

[syspec]

How then exactly did epic make over a billion dollars off of fortnite last year?

Free to play, does not mean they give away their products for free

[garmaine]

Doesn’t specify “give away some” vs. “give away all.” Either interpretation would be valid (but missing the point).