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Epic celebrates "the end of the Apple Tax" after court win in iOS payments case

(arstechnica.com)
432 points nobody9999 | 4 comments | 12 Dec 25 16:04 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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concinds ◴[12 Dec 25 17:23 UTC] No.46246274[source]▶
It feels like courts are not doing a good job promoting "competition".

- Apple shouldn't be able to charge for external payments, come on.

- Force prominent disclosure of refund policies. Epic Games doesn't allow them for IAP. Apple does. Epic knows exactly how predatory that is, betting some kids will find ways to spend thousands and the parents will be helpless. Ideally you'd have a law mandating refunds, but without that, there should be mandatory disclosure on the IAP screen, at least for microtransaction games. You can't have fair "competition" when you have an information asymmetry, and if these rulings don't mandate that, you'll open the floodgate for these gaming companies to screw over parents.

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lapcat ◴[12 Dec 25 17:31 UTC] No.46246385[source]▶
> - Force prominent disclosure of refund policies. Epic Games doesn't allow them for IAP. Apple does.

Apple has no official App Store refund policy, either for IAP or for upfront paid apps. I've already looked for one. There's of course a form to request a refund, but refunds are entirely at Apple's discretion, for any reason or no reason, and Apple often exercises its discretion to refuse refunds.

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1. raw_anon_1111 ◴[12 Dec 25 17:58 UTC] No.46246684[source]▶
I have never had Apple to refuse a refund and I’ve had an iTunes account since 2003
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2. lapcat ◴[12 Dec 25 18:09 UTC] No.46246822[source]▶
> I have never had Apple to refuse a refund

Good for you, but you're only one user out of more than a billion.

> I’ve had an iTunes account since 2003

I'm not sure how that's relevant, because the App Store opened in 2008. Also, Apple had a different CEO at the time.

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3. raw_anon_1111 ◴[12 Dec 25 18:27 UTC] No.46247051[source]▶
The App Store was built on iTunes and used the same backend. The refund process hasn’t changed since then. Funny enough before the App Store you could buy Apple curated apps for your iPod.

Have you heard reports of Apple not granting refunds?

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4. lapcat ◴[12 Dec 25 18:35 UTC] No.46247154{3}[source]▶
> The App Store was built on iTunes and used the same backend. The refund process hasn’t changed since then.

I'm not talking about the technical process. Like I already said, "There's of course a form to request a refund".

> Have you heard reports of Apple not granting refunds?

Yes, many. Indeed, I've heard it from my own customers, as I'm an App Store developer myself.