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by dpkonofa 2097 days ago
>it's pretty clear cut that this is Apple's decision and not Epic's

This is a chicken or egg problem. Epic was the one that violated the rules of the App Store, not Apple. If Epic hadn't done that, Apple wouldn't have been forced to take away their capabilities to provide updates. You can follow that chain of events without insinuating that Epic is lying.
3 comments
noelsusman 2097 days ago
Epic publishing an app on iOS that breaks Apple's policies does not force Apple to prevent Epic from publishing any software on any of their platforms. That's a choice Apple made. The whole thing is a choice by Apple because Apple is the one writing the policies in the first place. They're not forced to do anything, it's their platform.
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larrik 2097 days ago
They violated the rules of the iOS App Store, this is the Mac one. In fact, it effectively blocks them from releasing it as a direct download as well.

This is likely going to be a significant mistake from Apple in hindsight.

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dpkonofa 2097 days ago
It's one agreement and Epic violated it.
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larrik 2097 days ago
I'm pretty sure they are separate agreements and separate charges, and therefore separate transactions and contracts.
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rsfinn 2096 days ago
This has not been true since 2015, when the various developer programs (Mac, iOS, and Safari) were combined into a single Apple Developer program (for $99/year).

Source: I've been a member of the Apple Developer program since at least 2006, which was the first year I attended WWDC. The current program is described at <https://developer.apple.com/programs/>.

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nrmitchi 2097 days ago
> one that violated the rules of the App Store, not Apple

This is an invalid comparison because Apple cannot, by definition of them writing the rules with the ability to change them whenever they want, violate the "rules" of the App Store. Phrasing it like this implies that "Apple violating the rules" is even a possibility.

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dpkonofa 2097 days ago
You're using a silly grammatical error to gloss over the entire point of my statement. Apple obviously can't violate their own rules. That wasn't the point. The point was that the impetus of the situation was Epic, not Apple. Epic willingly chose to violate the rules and that kicked off the whole situation. If you want me to rephrase the statement, then here: "Epic was the one that violated the rules of the App Store. Apple didn't start the chain of events that caused this situation. Epic did."

Happier?

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