Epic Games and Apple are going to court over Fortnite in the AppStore

[Whistler]

@TavishHill

…e apps that use it likewise fall short of those security requirements and will fail review. Hence, they get delisted or at best lose access to future customers that Apple had guaranteed them access to in their contractual agreements. Apple’s unilaterally, unjustified actions taken against an unrelated party then results in Apple breaching these contracts. I’m saying Apple’s actions inevitably lead to those contracts being breached by Apple not allowing access to dev tools that those devs were promised. Not that Apple was directly saying the contracts were terminated, rather that such a result follows irrevocably from their actions a few steps down the line. I’ve explained it a few times now and I do think we are going in circles. Nobody else besides us seems interested enough to comment.

Apple isn’t breaching contracts with developers if the developer fails security checks due to using third party tools that don’t work with the store. That is like saying Apple’s contracts with developers force Apple to support whatever tools the developers are using no matter what. If there is a fallout of developers losing access to the Apple ecosystem due to them using UE, that isn’t a breach of contract just because it was Apple who wouldn’t let Epic have access to their tools.

To be clear here. Apple has their own tools they created for developers to use to get their products on the store. Epic uses these tools to integrate into UE so they can sell it to developers wanting to put their stuff on Apple’s store. Apple would simply deny Epic access to these tools. That’s it. Apple isn’t denying access of their tools to those other developers.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree on whatever semantics is going on here.

[TavishHill]

@Whistler

…with the store. That is like saying Apple’s contracts with developers force Apple to support whatever tools the developers are using no matter what. If there is a fallout of developers losing access to the Apple ecosystem due to them using UE, that isn’t a breach of contract just because it was Apple who wouldn’t let Epic have access to their tools. To be clear here. Apple has their own tools they created for developers to use to get their products on the store. Epic uses these tools to integrate into UE so they can sell it to developers wanting to put their stuff on Apple’s store. Apple would simply deny Epic access to these tools. That’s it. Apple isn’t denying access of their tools to those other developers. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on whatever semantics is going on here.

Aye, agree to disagree indeed. Appreciate the discussion at least!

[anonymous]

@TavishHill

Aye, agree to disagree indeed. Appreciate the discussion at least!

Epic is still trying to mobilize its pre-teen Fortnite players against Apple. Wonder if anyone will tell them that they could actually still play Fortnite on iPhone if Epic would stop violating the ToS and revert the changes. I imagine Epic won’t mention that

God Epic is just pathetic, and makes it easy to root for their demise.

[TavishHill]

@anonymous

Epic is still trying to mobilize its pre-teen Fortnite players against Apple. Wonder if anyone will tell them that they could actually still play Fortnite on iPhone if Epic would stop violating the ToS and revert the changes. I imagine Epic won’t mention that

God Epic is just pathetic, and makes it easy to root for their demise.

I dunno where this notion comes from that Fortnite is predominantly played by children. I’m rooting for sensible application of the law myself. EPIC’s actions were a terrible way to bring forward potentially great arguments against Apple. It’s flashy, which In do like tbh, but it also is needlessly combative. The way Apple responded beyond removing Fortnite is much worse though imho. EPIC’s actions merely annoyed Apple briefly and hurt EPIC more than Apple, and EPIC was perfectly fine with that outcome. Apple’s overreaction with UE hurts gamers and devs.

It will be interesting to see how the hearings go next month.

[anonymous]

Now Facebook coming after Apple due to the privacy feature which doesn’t allow them to track user data in the newer iOS code. Security is the main reason why I continue to root for Apple in all these cases, including losing some convenience with apps that won’t be allowed in the App Store. I certainly haven’t forgotten Epic trying to scrape user data off PC’s without the user’s knowledge with EGS - until they were caught as well.

I will take security over convenience any day, because the PC is already a minefield I would prefer to avoid on my phone.