Apple just kicked Fortnite off the App Store

Sigh. I guess we're going to remove a product category (the relatively safe, very consistent, managed platform you can use when you just want to use a computer and not also manage a computer) and call that consumer choice, then? I'd prefer instead that more companies make something similarly-nice and compete with Apple. I have lots and lots of options I can use if I want to have to worry about a bunch of silly stuff like "will this .exe or 3rd-party repo pwn me?" or "is this payment prompt fake?" when I'm just trying to play the piano, make art, track recipes, balance my books, or whatever. I use them all the time, in fact. When I don't want to worry about that crap I use iOS. It's nice having any option in that category. I do not want to go back to having zero of them. I don't care that 3rd party browsers on it have to render with the WebKit engine. Not even a little.

Isn't the point here that Apple could still provide good security features in iOS and still provide their app store with whatever security or other vetting measures they consider appropriate and allow users to install software from other sources if they so wish?

Users who want Apple's version of safety and security can stick with the default configuration on their devices and install apps only from Apple's store, just like today. However, both they and Apple would pay a price if the Apple app store was then too restrictive in its policies and/or tried to charge excessively: developers who weren't prepared to provide their apps on those terms could sell them through other stores.

Then for those apps, Apple wouldn't get their cut, while users who insisted on sticking with only Apple's store wouldn't have the same range of apps available to them. However, no other users or developers would have their hands tied by Apple's policies. I fail to see how this would restrict consumer choice more than the status quo.

No, but it may mean some apps will use different payment prompts & systems, different cancellation systems for subscriptions, have different return policies, and so on, and it may mean that sometimes an app I want requires me to either go sign up on another app store or else not use the app, while right now 100% of apps on the platform are on one store, so that is never an issue. If I want to deal with that mental overhead and risk I can go use my PC. I have options if I want that experience. I don't on my phone and tablets.

> Are you arguing having firefox and ublock on iphone will suddenly make it more pleasant to browse the web and you don't like it? I am sure you are not.

Effectively every site works alright in Safari. It has to. It might not anymore if Google can banner-ad enough of the iOS ecosystem onto Chrome using their own renderer instead of Webkit.

My kindergartener's school iPad won't come with some cheaply-made app marketed to schools that contains an entire web engine (makes cross-platform easier, don't you know) that has a bug that lets it access the open web, bypassing the OS web controls. It can't, because if it uses a webview it has to use Webkit, which obeys the OS settings. That's a good thing.

For that matter half the apps on the app store aren't the mobile equivalent of Electron, shipping with an entire browser on board, for the same reason of developer convenience, wasting my disk space and killing my battery, because they're simply not allowed to do that. Again, good thing. I don't want to have to try to figure out the damn stack an app was built on before clicking "buy". It's bad enough they let React Native and Phonegap and such through the review process. I wish they didn't.

I don't know how it's so hard to understand that the locking down is a feature to many users. I want more devices that do that. Everyone worries about some dark future of only locked-down devices but here I am annoyed that there's a monopoly on those, while I've got a ton of options for my other computing needs. If I want a safe, low-maintenance, but still highly-capable machine for some non-tech-nerd in my life, which they'll be able to use pretty well totally independently, I have one option. That sucks.

Or were consumers free to keep using Google search the same way they always had, and was there literally no downside at all to the people who wanted to keep using Google?

Nobody is talking about forcing you to sideload apps. If you want to stay in your walled garden, stay there. But the rest of us should get a choice.

There are a bunch of people on HN arguing simultaneously that:

A) Consumers want Apple's walled garden and Apple is meeting their needs,

and

B) The option to install apps from a 3rd party source would immediately cause consumers to jump ship from Apple's official store, and there would be no incentive for companies to release apps on the official store, and security on the device would be ruined forever.

Both of those arguments can't be true at the same time. If you're providing a service that consumers want, you don't have to force them into it. If forcing consumers not to sideload apps is the only reason why consumers use Apple's store, then maybe that's a good sign that consumers don't want what Apple is providing.

If consumers do want what Apple is offering, if consumers do want a unified storefront with strict moderation for everything, then there'll still be plenty of market pressure for most commercial apps to release on the official store.

> while users who insisted on sticking with only Apple's store wouldn't have the same range of apps available to them.

Exactly. From my perspective my i-devices get worse if that happens, for exactly that reason. I'm stuck choosing between availability of software and safety & consistency. Again. Like everywhere else.

> I fail to see how this would restrict consumer choice more than the status quo.

Clearly, the choice of being able to buy a phone or tablet where 100% of the apps available on it, and 100% of payments for digital services in apps, go through one app store and one payment system, would be gone. My choice to buy a device that works that way would be gone, and i-devices would join literally all the other choices I have which do not work that way.

> and

> B) The option to install apps from a 3rd party source would immediately mean that consumers all jump ship from Apple's official store and there would be no incentive for companies to release apps on the official store, and security on the device would be ruined forever.

> Both of those arguments can't be true at the same time. If you're providing a service that consumers want, you don't have to force them into it. If forcing consumers not to sideload apps is the only reason why consumers use Apple's store, then maybe that's a good sign that consumers don't want what Apple is providing.

The reason this looks like a contradiction is because it's not the actual position.

Mine, at least, is that 1) yes to A, and I'm not speculating, I personally feel that way as an iOS user, but then 2) no, on B: the concern isn't that users will jump ship from the App Store (I don't care, why would I?) but that developers will (and that I care about).

Your children are not in danger from antitrust enforcement.

What is the practical difference to you, as a user, between:

A) Not being able to install Fortnite because it's only available on a third-party iOS storefront,

and

B) Not being able to install Fortnite because it's not available on iOS.

If apps jump ship from the official store, you personally as a security-conscious user won't be able to install them. But if apps jump ship from iOS, you also won't be able to install them. So who cares if developers move off the official iOS store? Aren't they already free to do so today?

----

I'm going to go out on a limb and say the difference is that (deep down) we all know that Epic is right, and Apple really is one half of a duopoly -- a half that controls over 50% of the entire mobile app store revenue in the US -- and that it would be insane for an app like Fortnite to drop iOS. I think the difference between the scenarios above is that (deep down) both you and I know that Fortnite isn't really free to abandon iOS as a platform, and that the stranglehold iOS has over the market is the only reason apps like Fortnite are on iOS in the first place.

We know that given the choice, consumers and developers would both choose a more open device. And we know that the only reason the closed ecosystem works at all is because many developers and users don't have a realistic choice about whether or not to accept Apple's terms.

The reason people see the two scenarios I list above as different is because, yeah, all of us on HN do actually know that Fortnite doesn't really have the option to walk away from Apple devices, and without a 3rd-party store Epic will be forced to agree to pretty much any terms that Apple requires -- they have no negotiating power. And once we admit that, then it becomes a lot more obvious why developers are asking for some kind of regulation around app store policies.

If dropping iOS and supporting only Android or PC was actually a realistic, sufficient option for most developers, then you wouldn't be worried that they'd all jump ship the moment they had a 3rd-party store as an option on iOS -- those developers would have already left the Apple app store (and iOS) behind.

This is a false dichotomy. You still need to worry about that. Exploits for iOS are cheaper than exploits for Android[1], because exploits for iOS are so abundant[2].

[1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/09/for-t...

[2] https://www.securityweek.com/zerodium-expects-ios-exploit-pr...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeanbaptiste/2019/09/04/why-zer...

Here's a better suggestion:

Stop Apple abusing their platform to force their customers to use their own book store by making others impractical.

Stop Apple abusing their monopoly to force their customers to use one browser.

Stop Apple abusing their monopoly to gouge everyone that wants to be on their platform with a 30% fee on every transaction (10% would be more reasonable, 3% a bare minimum to cover costs).

Windows 10 ships with a firewall, schools enforce firewall rules on their PCs, therefore Surface ships with the same locked-down protections of a kindergarten computing device? If that's not the reasoning here, I guess I'm just not following.

> Your children are not in danger from antitrust enforcement.

No, but the only easy to use, highly safe, but still capable and low-maintenance computing option out there might get somewhat worse. I'd rather have more competition in that category, not in the category of "app stores on iPhones". One of those is all I want. I want someone to make an iOS killer & related ecosystem (yes, including an app store) so damn good that I gleefully and enthusiastically switch—or failing that, good enough that Apple feels the heat of competition and makes some major improvements. I don't love having just the one option in that product category.

I also think smaller-time developers are underestimating the degree to which Apple's iOS market is attractive precisely because of the equilibrium brought about by that situation, and the overall value it brings to the user, and their consequent willingness to spend money there, as they cheer Epic on. Maybe I'm wrong and none of the market-creating rules Apple's enforced have anything to do with it, but I suspect too many tweaks may not kill that golden goose, but might well reduce its rate of egg-laying.

As I've repeated many times here, now, though, I'd love to see more platforms compete with iOS. Not with the app store. With iOS and its overall ecosystem.

Except the browser thing—that's already fine IMO, and I think keeping other browser engines off is very nice because it keeps the Electron-type riff-raff out of the store, among other reasons, and besides it's just the browser engine that's restricted. Again, what I'd rather see is another iOS-like OS & platform come on the market, also only one browser engine allowed, but for that browser engine to be better than Mobile WebKit, forcing Apple to improve or at least giving me another option in the same product category as i-devices, but with a browser engine I like better.

Apple don't keep other browsers off to keep electron out or make things safer, it is to ensure they have complete control of the web platform, which otherwise is a viable alternative to their app store, just the sort of alternative you're suggesting in fact.

Capitalism needs regulation to work well, if unregulated, it very quickly gives rise to robber barons and bullying of both consumers and smaller companies. Unfettered capitalism leads to monopolies, coercion and rent-seeking.

Isn't that a contradiction? App Store _IS_ "its overall ecosystem".

FWIW I’m all for regulating the hell out of anything with a corporate charter. As far as I’m concerned the deal they made when they asked us to let them have the privileges of incorporation is that we can do whatever we like to them, should we decide it’s in our interest, and if they don’t like it no-one’s forcing them to keep those protections. Half the reason I’m so keen on iOS‘ particular model of software distribution to begin with is because we haven’t regulated massive-scale collection of personal data out of existence. Give me that and I’ll join you to burn the last iPhone on a bonfire, or whatever. That’d be wonderful.

Interesting. Won't you agree that before 1 and 2 there is an implied 0 - must be Android or iOS (so that it can run Uber, Amazon etc)?

EDIT: maybe you misunderstood when I said "anything else doesn't matter". What I mean by that is that if $device cannot run "common" apps then it is a no-go. However, if it can then people look at 1 and 2 for sure, you're right there.

There's a chance Epic loses but Fortnite is so big, and no clone takes its place on iOS and ends up pwning it out of existence (a risk Epic is taking), that they decide to deny themselves piles of cash to keep sticking it to Apple, and that Fortnite's absence ends up eroding Apple's marketshare and so the App Store model becomes untenable that way. Or that that happens the next time a company does this. Of course that might happen. One app doing it does not yet have me worried I won't still have an excellent selection of software, all with spying and other anti-user capabilities significantly dampened versus other platforms, in two years.

Well, yes. I'm fairly sure they're trying to prompt that "major shift in the landscape" you mentioned. And I suspect that if a few of the other big players who have been unhappy with Apple's policies join them, they might even succeed, regardless of the outcome of the current legal action. Apple can almost certainly stand to lose one big name game from its ecosystem. But a "high end" phone that can't access the major streaming services or play several of the most popular games starts to look more like a phone that "just doesn't work", particularly with the sub-par web browser it also imposes.

One app doing it does not yet have me worried I won't still have an excellent selection of software, all with spying and other anti-user capabilities significantly dampened versus other platforms, in two years.

As I and others have pointed out many times, if you're relying on an app store for your platform's security and privacy restrictions, your model is already broken. The OS shouldn't be permitting inappropriate behaviour by apps, regardless of where they came from. Trying to thoroughly vet every new version of every app to ensure it will never do anything inappropriate that it otherwise could is a losing battle.

Sure, but they all do.