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But doing so wouldn't make that developer's software unusable on Windows.

baddox 6y ago
Being banned from the iOS App Store also doesn't make your software unusable on Windows, or Mac, or any other non-iOS platform. The App Store's exclusivity is precisely the same as that of nearly every video game console.
- brmgb 6y ago
  > The App Store's exclusivity is precisely the same as that of nearly every video game console. I don't understand why you keep bringing up video game consoles in this discussion. 1. You seem to believe people actually agree with the way console stores work. This is not the case. 2. The fact that the situation is also terrible somewhere else doesn't absolve Apple of anything. That's not how justice works.
  - baddox 6y ago
    If you are consistent in your claims and believe that all computing devices, including smartphones, game consoles, e-book readers, GPS watches, car entertainment centers, etc. should be required to provide a way for owners to run unsigned code, then my accusations of inconsistency do not apply to you. In fact, I see much much less vitriol aimed towards game console store policy than iOS App Store policy. That's why I mention it.
    - brmgb 6y ago
      You are intentionally muddying the water by bringing code signing (a technicality) and devices for which software distribution was never part of the economics. Nevertheless, yes, I think making ebook readers tied to a single store illegal would be a net positive from consumers. It would let stores compete on their merits as stores and readers as readers. More competition is always good. Pointedly, my argument is simple: the modern concept of plateform, as has been pushed by management consulting firms for the past two decades and successfully been exploited by hightech companies, is a blatant attack against anti competition laws and I believe the whole thing only started because the US government decided it would only meekly enforce them. Rebranding barriers to entry moats shouldn't make artificially building them more acceptable. As you rightfully pointed, plateforms seem to be popping everywhere nowadays from game consoles to cars. I don't find that surprising: reducing competition is like crack cocaine to companies. It both means less need to innovate and differentiate and a larger share of customers surplus (theorically all customer surplus but it might be too blatant then). Customers are the ones losing there. As the whole thing strongly goes against one of the core tenant of modern capitalism, it seems obvious to me it is going to end with more regulations as soon as the political zeitgeist regarding economy will lean less towards extrem laissez-faire. Unless of course, we decide to go full-bore towards nineteenth century style capitalism...
    - ericflo 6y ago
      They're clearly picking their battles. If they are able to win this case against Apple, they can use it as precedent to (hopefully) pressure consoles to open up too.
    - gtyras2mrs 6y ago
      They cannot fight all battles at once. They probably think they have a better chance of winning this battle and setting the precedent for the next battles for other "app store" issues.
    - m4rtink 6y ago
      And all these devices certainly should be able to run the code their owner wants them to run, full stop. That this is often not possible is stupid but also incredibly dangerous. Not by the standards of the evil Apple just did, but what even more malicious actors can do to you is they can run code on your device & you can't do anything about it. It could be state actors pressuring the company making the think & or exploiting vulnerabilities in the closed source firmware running on it.
  - matwood 6y ago
    TBH, the console makers are probably thinking 'shit, Apple is going to end up ruining it for all of us.' Not that it matters, but the Amazon app store has the worst policies IME.
- oblio 6y ago
  We actually have Nintendo to blame for this whole thing. They started the walled garden situation, and people seem oblivious to it and love them as a company. https://www.filfre.net/2016/04/generation-nintendo/ https://www.filfre.net/2016/04/generation-nintendo/ -> > In a landmark ruling against Tengen in March of 1991, Judge Fern Smith stated that Nintendo had the right to “exclude others” from the NES if they so chose, thus providing the legal soil on which many more walled gardens would be tilled in the years to come. All walled gardens suck.
  - quotha 6y ago
    Triggered.
    - dang 6y ago
      Would you please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments? You've done it a ton in this thread and it's not what HN is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.
  - jonny_eh 6y ago
    > people seem oblivious to it and love them as a company In the same way people love Apple.
- mantap 6y ago
  Epic's developer account will be suspended, meaning they can no longer use Xcode (!) or sign/notarize apps to run on the Mac.
- Hamuko 6y ago
  The fact that Apple is going to kill Epic Games' ability to notarize macOS apps does actually make their software unusable on Macs.
  - peapicker 6y ago
    Nope. I personally run with this setting: https://it.nmu.edu/docs/allowing-third-party-applications-install-macbook https://it.nmu.edu/docs/allowing-third-party-applications-in... Amazingly it then lets me run all the open source I want that I download from the internet but am too lazy to build myself.
    - ntSean 6y ago
      This setting has been removed from recent macOS versions.
      - waterhouse 6y ago
        Yup. In the Mac OS security settings window, for "Allow apps downloaded from:", you can only choose "App Store" or "App Store and identified developers". The workflow is now: 1. Try to open the application. Get a window that says "APPLICATION can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer.", and below that, in a smaller and non-bold font, "Your security preferences allow installation of only apps from the App Store and identified developers." The window only has an "OK" button. (There is also a small "?" button in the lower left, which is present in lots of notification windows and presumably points to a generic help page.) 2. Open Security & Privacy in System Preferences. There is now, magically, a line in it saying "APPLICATION was blocked from opening because it is not from an identified developer", and an "Open Anyway" button. I only discovered that workaround by accident. Before that, I believed that Mac OS had completely removed the option to run such applications. (As I recall, back when "Allow apps downloaded from: Anywhere" existed, if you did choose it, it would show some kind of warning and also revert itself after 30 days; it seemed obvious they wanted to remove the option entirely.) I'm tempted to bring out the word "gaslighting" to describe this. Because that line about "Your security preferences allow ..." is in a context where it should be an explanation of why "APPLICATION can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer", yet your security preferences about apps have only two choices and neither one would permit opening the application; and because a System Preferences pane now shows different options depending on what unrelated user applications you've opened recently, which is insane. ... Turns out there is a second, faster workaround. Right-click (or control-click) on the application, and click "Open". Then, instead of getting the liar window with only the "OK" button, you get a window that has an "Open Anyway" button. This workaround is, in fact, documented in the generic help page that the liar window's "?" button points to. This is also insane because it makes "Open" in its different forms (double-click, command-O, command-line "open", and the right-click "Open" option) no longer a single, uniform operation.

Being banned from the iOS App Store also doesn't make your software unusable on Windows, or Mac, or any other non-iOS platform. The App Store's exclusivity is precisely the same as that of nearly every video game console.

brmgb 6y ago
> The App Store's exclusivity is precisely the same as that of nearly every video game console. I don't understand why you keep bringing up video game consoles in this discussion. 1. You seem to believe people actually agree with the way console stores work. This is not the case. 2. The fact that the situation is also terrible somewhere else doesn't absolve Apple of anything. That's not how justice works.
- baddox 6y ago
  If you are consistent in your claims and believe that all computing devices, including smartphones, game consoles, e-book readers, GPS watches, car entertainment centers, etc. should be required to provide a way for owners to run unsigned code, then my accusations of inconsistency do not apply to you. In fact, I see much much less vitriol aimed towards game console store policy than iOS App Store policy. That's why I mention it.
  - brmgb 6y ago
    You are intentionally muddying the water by bringing code signing (a technicality) and devices for which software distribution was never part of the economics. Nevertheless, yes, I think making ebook readers tied to a single store illegal would be a net positive from consumers. It would let stores compete on their merits as stores and readers as readers. More competition is always good. Pointedly, my argument is simple: the modern concept of plateform, as has been pushed by management consulting firms for the past two decades and successfully been exploited by hightech companies, is a blatant attack against anti competition laws and I believe the whole thing only started because the US government decided it would only meekly enforce them. Rebranding barriers to entry moats shouldn't make artificially building them more acceptable. As you rightfully pointed, plateforms seem to be popping everywhere nowadays from game consoles to cars. I don't find that surprising: reducing competition is like crack cocaine to companies. It both means less need to innovate and differentiate and a larger share of customers surplus (theorically all customer surplus but it might be too blatant then). Customers are the ones losing there. As the whole thing strongly goes against one of the core tenant of modern capitalism, it seems obvious to me it is going to end with more regulations as soon as the political zeitgeist regarding economy will lean less towards extrem laissez-faire. Unless of course, we decide to go full-bore towards nineteenth century style capitalism...
  - ericflo 6y ago
    They're clearly picking their battles. If they are able to win this case against Apple, they can use it as precedent to (hopefully) pressure consoles to open up too.
  - gtyras2mrs 6y ago
    They cannot fight all battles at once. They probably think they have a better chance of winning this battle and setting the precedent for the next battles for other "app store" issues.
  - m4rtink 6y ago
    And all these devices certainly should be able to run the code their owner wants them to run, full stop. That this is often not possible is stupid but also incredibly dangerous. Not by the standards of the evil Apple just did, but what even more malicious actors can do to you is they can run code on your device & you can't do anything about it. It could be state actors pressuring the company making the think & or exploiting vulnerabilities in the closed source firmware running on it.
- matwood 6y ago
  TBH, the console makers are probably thinking 'shit, Apple is going to end up ruining it for all of us.' Not that it matters, but the Amazon app store has the worst policies IME.
oblio 6y ago
We actually have Nintendo to blame for this whole thing. They started the walled garden situation, and people seem oblivious to it and love them as a company. https://www.filfre.net/2016/04/generation-nintendo/ https://www.filfre.net/2016/04/generation-nintendo/ -> > In a landmark ruling against Tengen in March of 1991, Judge Fern Smith stated that Nintendo had the right to “exclude others” from the NES if they so chose, thus providing the legal soil on which many more walled gardens would be tilled in the years to come. All walled gardens suck.
- quotha 6y ago
  Triggered.
  - dang 6y ago
    Would you please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments? You've done it a ton in this thread and it's not what HN is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  > people seem oblivious to it and love them as a company In the same way people love Apple.
mantap 6y ago
Epic's developer account will be suspended, meaning they can no longer use Xcode (!) or sign/notarize apps to run on the Mac.
Hamuko 6y ago
The fact that Apple is going to kill Epic Games' ability to notarize macOS apps does actually make their software unusable on Macs.
- peapicker 6y ago
  Nope. I personally run with this setting: https://it.nmu.edu/docs/allowing-third-party-applications-install-macbook https://it.nmu.edu/docs/allowing-third-party-applications-in... Amazingly it then lets me run all the open source I want that I download from the internet but am too lazy to build myself.
  - ntSean 6y ago
    This setting has been removed from recent macOS versions.
    - waterhouse 6y ago
      Yup. In the Mac OS security settings window, for "Allow apps downloaded from:", you can only choose "App Store" or "App Store and identified developers". The workflow is now: 1. Try to open the application. Get a window that says "APPLICATION can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer.", and below that, in a smaller and non-bold font, "Your security preferences allow installation of only apps from the App Store and identified developers." The window only has an "OK" button. (There is also a small "?" button in the lower left, which is present in lots of notification windows and presumably points to a generic help page.) 2. Open Security & Privacy in System Preferences. There is now, magically, a line in it saying "APPLICATION was blocked from opening because it is not from an identified developer", and an "Open Anyway" button. I only discovered that workaround by accident. Before that, I believed that Mac OS had completely removed the option to run such applications. (As I recall, back when "Allow apps downloaded from: Anywhere" existed, if you did choose it, it would show some kind of warning and also revert itself after 30 days; it seemed obvious they wanted to remove the option entirely.) I'm tempted to bring out the word "gaslighting" to describe this. Because that line about "Your security preferences allow ..." is in a context where it should be an explanation of why "APPLICATION can't be opened because it is from an unidentified developer", yet your security preferences about apps have only two choices and neither one would permit opening the application; and because a System Preferences pane now shows different options depending on what unrelated user applications you've opened recently, which is insane. ... Turns out there is a second, faster workaround. Right-click (or control-click) on the application, and click "Open". Then, instead of getting the liar window with only the "OK" button, you get a window that has an "Open Anyway" button. This workaround is, in fact, documented in the generic help page that the liar window's "?" button points to. This is also insane because it makes "Open" in its different forms (double-click, command-O, command-line "open", and the right-click "Open" option) no longer a single, uniform operation.