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Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

(www.theverge.com)
1704 points ardit33 | 17 comments | 13 Aug 20 19:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.21s | source | bottom
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throwaway140820 ◴[14 Aug 20 04:16 UTC] No.24153297[source]▶
Apologies for the extreme swearing that ensues.

Wow, I would have hoped for better support from the HN community. Instead there are apologists after apologists. So what if Epic is big. Really, seriously shouldn't we have had alternative app stores available form the official ones. Why is this even a point of debate? All the time we hear stories of people one of our own getting fucked by these app stores and their lordship and now that we have an opportunity to make some noise, this is the response? Fuck that. Maybe we deserve these lords.

Fuck your security and fuck your walled gardens. Fucking no alternative browser allowed. Fuck that, fuck you apple and fuck you google. Fuck your monopoly and chokehold on the devs.

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throwaway6000 ◴[14 Aug 20 04:21 UTC] No.24153339[source]▶
1. Apple establishes rules that EVERY app publisher follows for YEARS.

2. Fortnite doesn't follow rule.

3. Apple kicks Fortnite out of the App store.

What were they expecting?

replies(7): >>24153342 #>>24153345 #>>24153352 #>>24153556 #>>24153586 #>>24153822 #>>24154046 #
1. jhardy54 ◴[14 Aug 20 04:22 UTC] No.24153345[source]▶
They were expecting to get kicked out of the app store so that they could file a lawsuit and challenge the app store monopoly. How is that unclear?
replies(2): >>24153359 #>>24153408 #
2. throwaway6000 ◴[14 Aug 20 04:24 UTC] No.24153359[source]▶
app store "monopoly"? No one's forcing you to use the Apple ecosystem. it's called Android.
replies(2): >>24153828 #>>24154402 #
3. whateveracct ◴[14 Aug 20 04:30 UTC] No.24153408[source]▶
Gonna sue Nintendo if they don't let your game in the eshop?
replies(3): >>24153864 #>>24153997 #>>24154170 #
4. ben-schaaf ◴[14 Aug 20 05:09 UTC] No.24153828[source]▶
Where you're pretty much stuck google play store, which has also banned the app...

There is side-loading, but there's a lot of friction there that I wouldn't expect normal users to withstand.

5. camhart ◴[14 Aug 20 05:13 UTC] No.24153864[source]▶
I understand this question, but I believe an eshop is different from a major platform used by hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis to run their lives.
replies(2): >>24153988 #>>24154191 #
6. spanhandler ◴[14 Aug 20 05:25 UTC] No.24153988{3}[source]▶
It is possible that some of those people would list "only one app store & gateway for digital payments" as a feature for which they bought devices based on that platform. I'd list lots of the things devs complain about on iOS as reasons I favor it as an end user, in fact. (for the record, I've also done iOS and Android dev)

They're not perfect at all and I wish very much that they had competition, but for me to consider it real competition with the product they're providing it'd have to be similarly locked-down. The locking-down is part of the value. There are already far-less-locked-down phones and tablets available for people who want that.

replies(1): >>24154603 #
7. the_hoser ◴[14 Aug 20 05:26 UTC] No.24153997[source]▶
Much harder, but it wouldn't surprise me if the do later, depending on how this goes.
8. Polylactic_acid ◴[14 Aug 20 05:51 UTC] No.24154170[source]▶
Nintendo should be forced to allow homebrew games/sideloading. These locked down bits of hardware are a disservice to society.
9. Mikhail_Edoshin ◴[14 Aug 20 05:54 UTC] No.24154191{3}[source]▶
Isn't Fortnite just some game?
replies(1): >>24156275 #
10. Polylactic_acid ◴[14 Aug 20 06:26 UTC] No.24154402[source]▶
Its a monopoly for developers. As a company you can not not use the app store because half of your customers are there and very few companies can afford to give up half of their customers.
replies(1): >>24154504 #
11. pjmlp ◴[14 Aug 20 06:39 UTC] No.24154504{3}[source]▶
Developers can chose to target other platforms.

There are countries with 0% iOS market share, half of zero is still zero.

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12. toyg ◴[14 Aug 20 06:52 UTC] No.24154603{4}[source]▶
Lock it down by default, but allow users to unlock it. Make it a bit hard, like the carrier-lock. You have your walled garden and I have my device.
replies(1): >>24154673 #
13. spanhandler ◴[14 Aug 20 06:58 UTC] No.24154673{5}[source]▶
I’m totally cool with that provided it’s not easy enough that another App Store is able to become a de facto necessity via that install method. The current official side-loading methods are almost good enough to suit the case of power users running a few custom apps from outside the store. If there’s a way to take off the time limits and not open up the possibility of the above scenario, that’d be wonderful. I have a couple non-App Store apps I’d put on mine, in fact.
14. imtringued ◴[14 Aug 20 07:52 UTC] No.24155072{4}[source]▶
I personally don't like Apple and will never buy an Apple product, but I fully agree. People who buy Apple products are perfectly fine with the way Apple restricts their platform. If you don't like this as a developer, then just leave and stop developing for iOS.

A single big company doing this just to cut down on some fees just reeks of greed.

replies(1): >>24155228 #
15. pjmlp ◴[14 Aug 20 08:14 UTC] No.24155228{5}[source]▶
It is not a single company, Google also kicked Fortnite, and it has been a thing in game consoles, car infotaiment systems, pre loaded apps on TV settop boxes and blue-ray players,....

The world is unfair, no one is expected to do charity for developers.

We are not a special snowflake job that isn't expected to give others the necessary payments to keep the whole chain working.

16. camhart ◴[14 Aug 20 10:49 UTC] No.24156275{4}[source]▶
Fortnite is a game, but the lawsuit only uses Fornite as a concrete example of what Apple is doing. Epic Games if fighting for everyone--all app developers and ios users.
17. Polylactic_acid ◴[16 Aug 20 23:18 UTC] No.24182226{4}[source]▶
For most business that is not a choice. If you are making a utility or game then maybe, but can a company like uber decide that they will only be available to android users?