[kevingadd]

Criticizing defects in a product or criticizing a vendor's misbehavior doesn't make you automatically a "bad actor". A healthy vendor/customer relationship involves having channels where this criticism can be exchanged without putting the vendor or the customer in a bad position, and the criticism results in a better product.

Instead, bug reports go into a black hole because Apple doesn't care, and they especially don't care about game developers, unless those game developers are running casino games or gacha games that bring in a billion dollars a year. Then Apple cares a lot - about 30%.

If a billion-dollar company is so thin-skinned that they can't handle having their policies criticized they're run by children.

Epic has historically brought in a lot of money for Apple, both directly - via titles like Infinity Blade and Fortnite - and indirectly - by enabling the developer ecosystem so more people can release titles on Apple platforms. In the past Epic helped promote new Apple product launches. Calling them a bad actor is ridiculous.

[wtallis]

Epic is trying not to call attention to it, but in the emails they published from Apple, Epic's history of violating an agreement with Apple was cited as why Apple has reason to not trust Epic. That may not be sufficient justification under EU law, but it's unquestionable that Apple has more underlying their concerns than just Epic's recent public complaining.

[misnome]

> Calling them a bad actor is ridiculous.

This is an absurd take. They very deliberately and publicly breached their agreement with apple, sued them when they got kicked out for it, and lost.

If that isn’t a textbook description of a bad actor then what the hell _would_ count for you?

[kevingadd]

By what metric is Epic Games having an account a "threat" to iOS? Are they going to hack end-users' devices? Collect their private information without permission and sell it to third parties? All just by having a developer account?

Isn't the app review system combined with iOS's robust security infrastructure supposed to prevent such an outcome? If a company as big and legally accountable as Epic, with a long track record, is so dangerous - by that standard lots of other developer accounts should be closed down too, just to be safe.

It's perfectly reasonable to go "I don't want to do business with Epic due to how they've treated me" but being your opponent is different from being a bad actor. Using language like this pointlessly inflates the magnitude of what Epic actually did and misrepresents the nature of their conflict with Apple.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Criticizing defects in a product or criticizing a vendor's misbehavior doesn't make you automatically a "bad actor"

Doing so publicly certainly does. I would terminate business with a client if they started airing out their issues about me on Twitter.

That said, I’m not Apple. At a certain size, you lose the right to reject bad actors.

[kevingadd]

Like I said, Apple gives you no other choice. They don't have proper channels for communication on things like software defects or policy. You have to kick up a public outcry to get any help.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Apple gives you no other choice

Sweeney and Schiller were emailing. Apple will read a letter you send addressed to their legal team.

[nottorp]

You don't control access to half of the world's mobile devices do you? :)