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Can I offer an alternate viewpoint? Epic didn't simply implement their own in-app purchase plan; they also remotely updated Fortnite to include it after it had
by rsfinn 6y ago
Can I offer an alternate viewpoint?
Epic didn't simply implement their own in-app purchase plan; they also remotely updated Fortnite to include it after it had passed app review (because Apple wouldn't have approved it, obviously). The whole point of app review is that Apple can assure its customers that apps are safe to run. Having apps that bypass the review by updating themselves subverts the whole process. You may not agree with the app review process, but it's clearly a feature that Apple regards as an important selling point.
Given that Epic has demonstrated a willingness to subvert the app review process, why should Apple allow such an untrustworthy developer to place its apps on any Apple platform?
(To be clear, Apple has said that they will gladly allow Epic back onto the App Store if they remove the private in-app purchase mechanism, so apparently Apple has not fully adopted this viewpoint -- at least, not yet...)
- _qulr 6y agoI would request that we please not rehash this debate here. It's been debated at length already elsewhere on HN. This is why I didn't mention Epic in my blog post, even though it's clearly the subtext. The point of my blog post wasn't to defend Epic, but rather to explain how difficult it would be for a developer to continue distributing software on the Mac without a code signature approved by macOS. The frequent suggestion is that users could "just right click", but it's not that simple.