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https://twitter.com/slasher/status/1295434558112960519?s=21 https://twitter.com/slasher/status/1295434558112960519?s=21 This may have consequences for Unreal E

by askl56 6y ago

https://twitter.com/slasher/status/1295434558112960519?s=21 https://twitter.com/slasher/status/1295434558112960519?s=21 This may have consequences for Unreal Engine too. Without a dev account, how can they maintain it?

danudey 6y ago
They can still build and test on-device, they just won't be able to publish anything to the app store. Specifically, in XCode, they can add an Apple ID (any Apple ID) and use that to build on a device.[1] This creates a "personal team"[2] which you can use to test on your devices. [1] https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/devaf282080a https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/devaf282080a [2] https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/dev17411c009 https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/dev17411c009
- grishka 6y ago
  Or, alternatively, use a jailbroken device for testing and modify the SDK to not require code signing when building for ARM.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    I’m fairly sure the SDK is only meant to be used by approved developers.
- mvn9 6y ago
  Why then all those monopoly-discussions? Cannot any program be 'side-loaded' by creating a personal team? Or the other way round: What good would be a personal team for epic if they cannot test their games on actual phones? If personal teams allow side-loading of apps, why isn't this a way to distribute apps? Why is there no app store for personal team apps?
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    > Why is there no app store for personal team apps? Honestly, for most people the App Store is good enough. For a long, long time, it wasn't good enough, and Apple was much stricter. As it got better, Apple started loosening the restrictions around deploying whatever you want to your device. People didn't really notice, and that's because the App Store was good enough. I suspect this was the game plan all along.
  - misnome 6y ago
    You need to re-sign it frequently because the certificate is only short-lived, and I think there are difficulties in signing existing binaries that make it mostly only useful for things you can distribute the source for. It's not really an alternative to an app store. There are also enterprise signing certificates for distributing custom apps within large companies without these restrictions, along with cases in the past where people have abused this to distribute; these are usually shut down pretty quickly as a blatant violation of the licencing agreement.
    - mvn9 6y ago
      How can they shut down distribution? If a personal team can install any sourcecode, how could apple block the distribution? Even if they scan for a binary hash, all it takes are some minor modifications to have a different program to install.
      - misnome 6y ago
        Oh, no there are a few of things here, and I think I got slightly confused. There is local signing, which I believe is short term - e.g. your own machine and device, which doesn't require paying anything to apple for a developer membership. This is for on-device testing. There's also Ad-hoc signing, which I believe is longer-lived, requires a developer account, but has restrictions on how many people you can send it to. As an enterprise user you can also distribute apps yourself to company employees without going via app store verification, though I think it's much harder to get onto this program https://developer.apple.com/programs/enterprise/ https://developer.apple.com/programs/enterprise/ . This is what has occasionally been abused, I don't know how the certificate is revoked centrally though, but it's not for [user] self-compiled code. It's possible that my knowledge of this is slightly off, because it was a few years since I worked with this stuff.
      - Someone 6y ago
        They can’t shut down distribution of source code, but: - your typical user wouldn’t know what to do with it - every install would run only for a limited time (only apps distributed through the App Store have a certificate that doesn’t expire), so those users would have to reinstall the app every week or so. - it would make it harder for them to make money from it (they would give away the game for free. The in-game store wouldn’t give away stuff, but the source likely would soon be changed to support alternative stores)
  - danudey 6y ago
    Other people have pointed out that the certificates don't last as long and you need to constantly re-sign your apps. This can be worked around, for sure, but it does mean that if you're out of the house when the cert expires, you cannot use that app until you get home. It also requires a Mac; Windows or Linux owners of iPhones are out of luck. Lastly, you lose access to a lot of features; push notifications, IAP, automatic updates, iCloud, etc. Basically, if Epic wanted to do this, they'd have to let everyone download the code and assets for Fortnite (likely hundreds of GB), then users would have to build it on their devices (which probably would take hours), then install it on their devices, then they would have to pay via Epic and not through iTunes. Whenever they wanted to update Fortnite they'd have to update the source tree and assets and rebuild the app again. And again, all of this would have to be on a Mac. I know a lot of people who own Macs which don't even have enough disk space to build something like Fortnite, even if they used it for literally nothing else. TL;DR Epic would have to open-source Fortnite and users would have to jump through irritating and potentially impossible hoops basically every day.
- kalleboo 6y ago
  That would work technically, but legally would a company that has been banned from the developer program have their developers use "Personal Teams" also be against the Terms of Service?
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    You can’t use Apple’s developer tools, period.
    - danudey 6y ago
      You absolutely can use Apple's developer tools without a developer account, and you absolutely can build and run code on a device without a developer account. I'm not sure why Epic claimed otherwise (other than that losing their developer account makes it far more inconvenient), but it's really just fearmongering to try to get the public on their side.
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        The tools have EULA on them, though.
      - kalleboo 6y ago
        Apple told Epic they will lose access to "all Apple developer tools" https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1295466701220466688 https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/12954667012204666...
      - nodamage 6y ago
        Just because you're physically able to download, install, and run something doesn't mean you have the legal right to use it. The developer tools come with a license agreement in which Apple legally grants you the rights to use the tools, and those rights can be revoked.
Hamuko 6y ago
Are there Apple Arcade games that use the Unreal Engine? Is Apple shooting itself in the leg to punish Epic?
- gamblor956 6y ago
  Many of the biggest Apple games use Unreal Engine, including many that Apple features in the Arcade.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pouta 6y ago
Slasher isn't and never will be a trusted source.

by askl56 6y ago

danudey 6y ago

They can still build and test on-device, they just won't be able to publish anything to the app store. Specifically, in XCode, they can add an Apple ID (any Apple ID) and use that to build on a device.[1] This creates a "personal team"[2] which you can use to test on your devices. [1] https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/devaf282080a https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/devaf282080a [2] https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/dev17411c009 https://help.apple.com/xcode/mac/current/#/dev17411c009

grishka 6y ago
Or, alternatively, use a jailbroken device for testing and modify the SDK to not require code signing when building for ARM.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I’m fairly sure the SDK is only meant to be used by approved developers.
mvn9 6y ago
Why then all those monopoly-discussions? Cannot any program be 'side-loaded' by creating a personal team? Or the other way round: What good would be a personal team for epic if they cannot test their games on actual phones? If personal teams allow side-loading of apps, why isn't this a way to distribute apps? Why is there no app store for personal team apps?
- arcticbull 6y ago
  > Why is there no app store for personal team apps? Honestly, for most people the App Store is good enough. For a long, long time, it wasn't good enough, and Apple was much stricter. As it got better, Apple started loosening the restrictions around deploying whatever you want to your device. People didn't really notice, and that's because the App Store was good enough. I suspect this was the game plan all along.
- misnome 6y ago
  You need to re-sign it frequently because the certificate is only short-lived, and I think there are difficulties in signing existing binaries that make it mostly only useful for things you can distribute the source for. It's not really an alternative to an app store. There are also enterprise signing certificates for distributing custom apps within large companies without these restrictions, along with cases in the past where people have abused this to distribute; these are usually shut down pretty quickly as a blatant violation of the licencing agreement.
  - mvn9 6y ago
    How can they shut down distribution? If a personal team can install any sourcecode, how could apple block the distribution? Even if they scan for a binary hash, all it takes are some minor modifications to have a different program to install.
    - misnome 6y ago
      Oh, no there are a few of things here, and I think I got slightly confused. There is local signing, which I believe is short term - e.g. your own machine and device, which doesn't require paying anything to apple for a developer membership. This is for on-device testing. There's also Ad-hoc signing, which I believe is longer-lived, requires a developer account, but has restrictions on how many people you can send it to. As an enterprise user you can also distribute apps yourself to company employees without going via app store verification, though I think it's much harder to get onto this program https://developer.apple.com/programs/enterprise/ https://developer.apple.com/programs/enterprise/ . This is what has occasionally been abused, I don't know how the certificate is revoked centrally though, but it's not for [user] self-compiled code. It's possible that my knowledge of this is slightly off, because it was a few years since I worked with this stuff.
    - Someone 6y ago
      They can’t shut down distribution of source code, but: - your typical user wouldn’t know what to do with it - every install would run only for a limited time (only apps distributed through the App Store have a certificate that doesn’t expire), so those users would have to reinstall the app every week or so. - it would make it harder for them to make money from it (they would give away the game for free. The in-game store wouldn’t give away stuff, but the source likely would soon be changed to support alternative stores)
- danudey 6y ago
  Other people have pointed out that the certificates don't last as long and you need to constantly re-sign your apps. This can be worked around, for sure, but it does mean that if you're out of the house when the cert expires, you cannot use that app until you get home. It also requires a Mac; Windows or Linux owners of iPhones are out of luck. Lastly, you lose access to a lot of features; push notifications, IAP, automatic updates, iCloud, etc. Basically, if Epic wanted to do this, they'd have to let everyone download the code and assets for Fortnite (likely hundreds of GB), then users would have to build it on their devices (which probably would take hours), then install it on their devices, then they would have to pay via Epic and not through iTunes. Whenever they wanted to update Fortnite they'd have to update the source tree and assets and rebuild the app again. And again, all of this would have to be on a Mac. I know a lot of people who own Macs which don't even have enough disk space to build something like Fortnite, even if they used it for literally nothing else. TL;DR Epic would have to open-source Fortnite and users would have to jump through irritating and potentially impossible hoops basically every day.
kalleboo 6y ago
That would work technically, but legally would a company that has been banned from the developer program have their developers use "Personal Teams" also be against the Terms of Service?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  You can’t use Apple’s developer tools, period.
  - danudey 6y ago
    You absolutely can use Apple's developer tools without a developer account, and you absolutely can build and run code on a device without a developer account. I'm not sure why Epic claimed otherwise (other than that losing their developer account makes it far more inconvenient), but it's really just fearmongering to try to get the public on their side.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      The tools have EULA on them, though.
    - kalleboo 6y ago
      Apple told Epic they will lose access to "all Apple developer tools" https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/1295466701220466688 https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/12954667012204666...
    - nodamage 6y ago
      Just because you're physically able to download, install, and run something doesn't mean you have the legal right to use it. The developer tools come with a license agreement in which Apple legally grants you the rights to use the tools, and those rights can be revoked.

Hamuko 6y ago

Are there Apple Arcade games that use the Unreal Engine? Is Apple shooting itself in the leg to punish Epic?

gamblor956 6y ago
Many of the biggest Apple games use Unreal Engine, including many that Apple features in the Arcade.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

pouta 6y ago

Slasher isn't and never will be a trusted source.