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US Supreme Court declines to hear appeals in Apple-Epic Games legal battle

197 points by jmsflknr 3y ago

Covzire 3y ago
I wish we could use our powerful handheld computing devices as if we owned them again. Steam should make a smart phone, fully open under the hood, decent specs, no walled gardens except optional ones.
- JohnMakin 3y ago
  Side-loading apps is not the mecca you think it is. It's going to create even more walled gardens, except this time, companies like meta don't have a fear of being yanked from the app store when they engage in practices that are harmful to user privacy. Should a mega corp like apple be the gatekeepers for this kind of stuff? In an ideal world no, but at least they are the only ones doing it.
  - aspenmayer 3y ago
    And if/when that happens and in the interim, end user can install a proper VPN and firewall on their iDevice instead of what we have now. https://www.michaelhorowitz.com/VPNs.on.iOS.are.scam.php https://www.michaelhorowitz.com/VPNs.on.iOS.are.scam.php
  - kelnos 3y ago
    People could, y'know, just not install the Facebook app, if they're unhappy with Meta's privacy practices. Of course, given that Meta's privacy practices are already atrocious, and people still use Facebook, I guess maybe it just doesn't matter? I agree that side-loading apps is no panacea; I use Android, and while I do have the F-Droid store installed, and even side-load a small utility app or two that I've written myself but can't be bothered to make publicly available, I'm actually not sure I know anyone in person who uses anything but the Play Store. But having the option there, to me -- even if I didn't use it -- is huge. Hell, having the option to install a third-party OS on the phone (even though I don't do it, because it would involve too many compromises to my daily use) is huge. That should be the default, not this locked-down nonsense Apple forces on everyone. It's just sad to me that so many people accept it as ok and normal.
    - gretch 3y ago
      > People could, y'know, just not install the Facebook app, if they're unhappy with Meta's privacy practices. Of course, given that Meta's privacy practices are already atrocious, and people still use Facebook, I guess maybe it just doesn't matter? Just apply this same reasoning to Apple iPhones. Everyone says sideloading is a big deal, but it turns out that when the phones don't have sideloading, people still use them anyway. I guess maybe it just doesn't matter.
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        Alternatively, hold both companies to higher standards through regulation and start treating technology as a secular field of businesses instead of the World Cup.
        gretch 3y ago
        Your “higher standard” is only “higher” for your preferences. Personally I’m happy with both the operation of Facebook and Apple. I do not wish a 3rd party with no track record of technical innovation, and especially not the US government, come and make some rules about what is a “higher standard”.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        > Personally I’m happy with both the operation of Facebook and Apple. You should have higher standards too, then.
        gretch 3y ago
        You are someone who is convinced that those with different preferences than you must be dumb or irrational. My standards are plenty high. They just aren’t aligned with your world views.
        smoldesu 3y ago
  - tick_tock_tick 3y ago
    I mean the reason Apple took action against Facebook was because they were trying to get traction on their own Ads platform. They didn't stop tracking on iphone they just made it so they were the only ones that can do it. Aka they used their position to crush competition not to increase privacy. They absolutely could have taken the opportunity to improve privacy overall but that would have limited their own ads platform so they didn't.
- fsflover 3y ago
  There are already GNU/Linux phones running a FLOSS, desktop OS, without walled gardens: Librem 5 and Pinephone.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    Unfortunately they don't have the market share to have the clout to do a lot of things users really want. I run Linux on my laptop as my daily-driver and sole OS; I've been mostly doing this for more than 20 years now (with some brief dalliances with macOS here and there that never stuck). But my phone runs Google's stock Pixel version of Android. While there are other examples, a single example I think suffices: Google Pay. I like contactless payments, and I like not having to fish around for a credit card (or just not having to bring a credit card, say if I'm out for a run). What are the chances of a Google/Apple-Pay-workalike app ever appearing on the Librem 5 or Pinephone? Seems pretty slim to me. I'm not saying these phones have no value; clearly they do. And the world is better off with their existence. But they are not a realistic choice for most people.
    - fsflover 3y ago
      > I like contactless payments, and I like not having to fish around for a credit card Yes, unfortunately, if you want the freedom and control, you have to pay for that with some compromises. > What are the chances of a Google/Apple-Pay-workalike app ever appearing on the Librem 5 or Pinephone? Waydroid allows to run Android apps. It works fine on my Librem 5, unless apps require verified Android environment. Unfortunately Librem 5 has no NFC at all. AFAIK Pinephone offered a case which enabled NFC functionality.
      - hot_gril 3y ago
        Credit cards and contactless payments alike are a far bigger form of control than phone OSes. Bank, government, and advertisers watching your purchases, building a profile, taking their cut, and banning any buyers/sellers they want. In real life, not just digital. If I were worried enough about control to use a FOSS phone, I'd for sure be paying with cash too. But I'm not. Also, cell carrier will be tracking your location and giving that info out. Not sure if that can be avoided, but maybe a prepaid plan helps anonymize it.
- rstupek 3y ago
  I'm wondering when that was ever true? Until the advent of the iphone, from my recollection phone devices didn't allow you to install whatever you wanted. In fact they were even more restrictive for developers than they are now
  - stonogo 3y ago
    Tons of counterexamples: Windows Mobile, PalmOS, Symbian, even dumbphone operating systems like S30 allowed J2EE apps. Of these, the strictest control was exercised in the J2EE ecosystem, which could be (and often was) configured such that only programs signed by the OEM could run. But that was an extreme case, because all smartphones operated with what kids these days called "sideloading." "Sideloading" used to be called "installing" and you didn't need to do it with a specific piece of software run by the company who issued your operating system.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Steam feels like a DRM / manufacturer control system more than anything else. It has to be open to launch any of your games, it sorta forces you to install updates to even launch your games (some asterisks there), it disallows downgrading them, a solid number of games are Steam-only, and it shows ads.
  - tmtvl 3y ago
    Technically there are games on Steam that don't require the Steam client to be running in order for you to play them. If you google 'Steam DRM-free games' on DuckDuckGo you'll easily find a list.
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      Games that are purchased and downloaded on Steam but can be run without it? I didn't know this was a thing without hacks, but yeah there are some that do this out of the box.
    - joemi 3y ago
      > If you _google_ 'Steam DRM-free games' _on DuckDuckGo_ (Emphasis mine) I'm quite amused that this is how language works.
granzymes 3y ago
This leaves in place the bulk of the ruling favoring Apple, but also the elimination of the anti-steerage rules that Epic successfully challenged (sort of, the trial judge mostly did that on her own). So, to summarize, the relevant market is this dispute was the mobile game market (not an iPhone-specific market like Epic wanted), Apple does not have a monopoly in that market, and Apple doesn’t need to charge less in the App Store or for in-app purchases. But, due to California law, Apple cannot prevent developers from informing consumers that lower prices are available outside of the app.
- voisin 3y ago
  > due to California law Will this lead to a carve out for California users, similar to the carve out they are making for app stores in the EU?
  - granzymes 3y ago
    My understanding is “no” (Apple is enjoined against enforcing the rules on anyone), but if we wait a few days we’ll know for sure. Apple’s cert petition at the Supreme Court was basically the argument that’s it’s unfair that a lawsuit from one developer would prevent its anti-steerage language from adhering to any developer.
    - kelnos 3y ago
      > Apple’s cert petition at the Supreme Court was basically the argument that’s it’s unfair that a lawsuit from one developer would prevent its anti-steerage language from adhering to any developer. Regardless of the legality around this, I just don't get that kind of thinking. So anyone who wants to be able to exercise their legal right would have to, individually (or as a class, I guess) take Apple to court over this? That would actually be kinda fun, now that I think about it. Apple getting hit with thousands of lawsuits over the same thing, all of them settled case law, having to spend all that money on lawyers and court fees. This reminds me of a dumb quirk of Italian law. Italy offers citizenship to non-citizen foreigners who can prove an unbroken line of citizenship back to their most recent Italian ancestor who was an Italian citizen. (It's more complicated than that and there are some rules and caveats, but that's the basic idea.) There's a super-misogynistic part of that law that says citizenship cannot be passed through female ancestors prior to 1948. The Italian Supreme Court has ruled that part of the law unconstitutional. But the law is still on the books, and Italy's legislature has not updated it to remove the unconstitutional language, so anyone who wants to use that route to get citizenship has to go to court to do so. It's such a waste of everyone's time and money (well, the lawyers, as usual, make out quite well: a slam-dunk case for them that takes very little effort).
Arnt 3y ago
https://archive.is/gPaPr https://archive.is/gPaPr
xoa 3y ago
"Snubs" doesn't really seem appropriate here as prose. There are plenty of issues with SCOTUS and the US judiciary one could complain about, but a simple one is simply that at the end of the day there is one supreme court of 9 people and they physically can only handle so many cases per year. LOTS or cases of way more fundamental importance then this one get declined every year because only a fraction of those seeking appeal to SCOTUS can possibly get it even if they thought all of them were worthy, which they aren't. At the end of the day this particular case doesn't really seem to rise to that level. There's no big circuit split, no deep constitutional issues, no enormous injustice to individual people, lower courts don't seem to have gotten anything particularly wrong given the current state of the law, and Congress could certainly step in if it wanted in ways much more fine tuned. Each company has plenty of money to be made out of it but that's about it. Neither side got everything they wanted. I'd personally like to see a federal law trying a scalpel first, where at purchase time people can elect to have the ability to add to the root key store of any hardware they buy, or entrust that to the manufacturer instead. That'd preserve most if not all of the benefits for those who don't want to have to deal with that like right now, and wish to pool their collective purchasing power with Apple or whomever to enforce certain standards on developers. But it'd mean anyone who wanted to could also venture forth from the walled garden and small devs who wanted to focus on that could do so. In terms of power balance I think it'd work out pretty well, the biggest players also want to reach the broadest audience and thus would face more restrictions, whereas small focused devs fine catering to a devoted fanbase, or pure open source, would have the most freedom. It's kinda too bad so much of the conversation is binary of "complete jailed garden" like right now vs "devs getting to do whatever they want to everyone whether they like it or not" like on the PC.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  We have millions of people talking about this case today. I find it absurd to argue that it isn't interesting enough to be worth the time.
  - granzymes 3y ago
    The Supreme Court does not decide cases: it decides questions. Whether or not the case is interesting, the legal questions the parties asked the Court to resolve were evidently not worth its time.
cubefox 3y ago
> The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld much of Rogers' decision in 2023, finding that Epic had "failed to prove the existence of substantially less restrictive alternatives" to Apple's system. What does this mean? Does Apple even allow any alternatives?
- granzymes 3y ago
  It means that Epic failed to identify a better way for Apple to collect its 30%/15% fee than mandating developers use its in-app purchase system. Epic’s cert petition at the Supreme Court focused on the argument that it’s unfair that their identified solution needed to be equally or less burdensome, but the Supreme Court turned them away.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    To be clear, equally or less burdensome for whom?
    - granzymes 3y ago
      For Apple, since the court found that they have a right to collect their fee.
      - cubefox 3y ago
        Okay, then it's clear why Epic couldn't do anything.
- kelnos 3y ago
  I assume they mean that you can use an Android phone, instead. Which I think is preposterous, but... there we are.
elpool2 3y ago
It will be interesting to see how far the anti-steering ruling actually goes. Will Apple still be able to block links to a alternative payment options? Or what if the link contains a token that logs you in automatically and goes straight to a payment form that’s almost indistinguishable from an in-app form?
- threeseed 3y ago
  "Developers may apply for an entitlement to provide a link in their app to a website the developer owns or maintains responsibility for in order to purchase such items." https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/16/apple-revises-us-app-store-rules-to-let-developers-link-to-outside-payment-methods-but-it-will-still-charge-a-commission/ https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/16/apple-revises-us-app-store-ru...
  - ko27 3y ago
    Devs just won't add links when informing their users that it's cheaper on their website and Apple can't do anything about it. They are not allowed to ban it according to this ruling.
  - elpool2 3y ago
    Thanks and wow, they’re really doing everything imaginable to make it difficult to include such a link. And their rules say the link cannot contain any additional parameters so it rules out the possibility of just linking directly to a payment form. You would have to log in first, then pay.
somenameforme 3y ago
It seems easy to kind of shrug at this, but this does seem quite significant because of many mobile apps are 'free to play.' Apple pocketing 30% of all of these transactions, and forcing users/devs to go through Apple, is a major part of its revenue. And all of those apps now have the option to direct users to alternative payment methods, where they can both charge users substantially less and make more profit doing so. Should be interesting to see what happens!
- MBCook 3y ago
  I’m curious to see what devs do. On the one hand Apple payments are really frictionless. There is no way 3rd parties can match it. Plus easy to track/cancel. On the other hand a lower price is a lower price. But is it low enough to get enough users to enter a credit card? Combine this with the alternate App Store thing (looks like EU only) and we’re in for some shaking out of what is and is not a good strategy as an app maker with never before seen on iPhone options in the mix.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    > On the other hand a lower price is a lower price. But is it low enough to get enough users to enter a credit card? An excellent question. I think the thing is that for the prices that often show up in apps, maybe not? Like, for a $3 app I don't think I'm going to go visit some website, go through their flow, and get out my credit card if I'm only going to save $1. (Ok, I'd probably do it on principle at this point to stick it to Apple, but that's not the same thing.) If I were going to shell out $100, I'd certainly go to the extra trouble to pay $70 instead, though. The dangerous thing is that with all these mobile games that slowly siphon money from you, you might over time end up spending many tens or even hundreds of dollars (where 30% off might be a significant amount of money). But if each transaction is small, you might not think much of the difference of a dollar or so per transaction.
    - eszed 3y ago
      I would expect from a developer's perspective it makes sense to stick with Apple's mechanism until ARR * 0.30 = whatever it costs to run your own solution. (More power to you if you're the developer who can do that from the start, but that won't be most people.) I wonder, though, if the slow siphon becomes more obvious if it's attributed, in a customer's credit card statement, to [Game Co.] instead of [APPL]. I won't be sad if fewer people spend money on those types of games.
nsagent 3y ago
I wonder if this will open the floodgate for more apps to offer free trials through the App Store, with an in-app paywall linking to an external payment processor with lower fees. Basically, Apple gets stuck with the obligation to maintain the App Store, while taking a considerably smaller chunk of the overall pie. Might make them rethink the value proposition of a closed ecosystem if they can't recoup enough of the cost for running the store.
- Uvix 3y ago
  Not sure why that would lead Apple to opening their devices up. I’d first expect Apple to start charging developers fees for bandwidth usage not tied to a purchase.
- londons_explore 3y ago
  Even if the store bought in no revenue at all, they'd still run it. The existence of the store sells lots of phones.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  I think apple still gets to collect its 30% in this situation. The ruling was that apps can direct to other payment options but apple can still collect the 30% fee. Only way around the fee I see is to have just a general subscription service and tell users to sign up on the website, giving plausible deniability about where the signup came from.
misnome 3y ago
As I understood this ruling at the time, one major caveat was that they have to open up payment options but are still allowed to demand 30% of the third-party payments, thus making it mostly irrelevant. This article mentions nothing about it - was this interpretation overly pessimistic?
- newprint 3y ago
  From what I understand, ruling is saying: Apple can't block developers from displaying notification that the app can be bought cheaper elsewhere.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    But it won't be cheaper elsewhere since developer still needs to pay the 30% commission.
    - ko27 3y ago
      How would that work? From my previous comment, let's say you add this message (no links): "Buy with Apple Pay, or visit our website and pay 20% less". Nobody knows how many users decided to visit the website instead.
      - threeseed 3y ago
        Total Installs - App Store Installs = Third Party Installs And they know total installs from the notary service.
        simiones 3y ago
        That doesn't work for in-app purchases, which is almost certainly the majority of revenue.
      - 542458 3y ago
        It would work the same as many other revenue sharing agreements out there (including those for Epic’s own Unreal Engine). Yes, there’s no technical mechanism to keep you from screwing the other party (and small-scale fraud will likely go undetected), but there are contractual/legal mechanisms.
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
> Today's denial of petitions for certiorari means that Apple has mostly run out of legal options to prevent changes to its App Store policies now that multiple courts have found its "anti-steering" language anticompetitive. So the courts agree that Apple uses anticompetitive practices.
- SllX 3y ago
  A court found that Apple used a specific business practice found to be anticompetitive, this was upheld on appeal and SCOTUS declined to address any legal questions. So, to restate what you said more correctly: a court has found Apple used an anticompetitive practice and an Appeals court upheld it or “agreed” if you prefer. Law is a whole lot more boring when you murder the rhetorical intent in how people interpret it with extreme prejudice.
- MBCook 3y ago
  > So the courts agree that Apple uses AN anticompetitive PRACTICE. Fixed it. They said not allowing developers to say it was possible to pay externally was against the law. I think a California law? They did not say that about Apple’s fee, the existence of only Apple’s App Store, or anything else. It was limited to anti-steering.
- tick_tock_tick 3y ago
  Yes, that's correct. Hopefully some of their other anti-competitiveness practices get ruled against but for now it's rather limited to some of their most flagrant behavior.
- kelnos 3y ago
  As siblings point out, the courts agree to one single anti-competitive practice. The thing here is that the only thing Epic won on was a fairly clear California law, the anti-steering stuff. While this is good news, this isn't really groundbreaking: it's an unsurprising legal result, given that the CA law exists, and doesn't conflict with any federal law. The bits where Epic lost were much more significant, and were related to plain-vanilla anti-trust law. Law which I had hoped would apply here and break up Apple's iOS app distribution monopoly.
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beaned 3y ago
Does this mean there are separate rulings for Google and Apple? Does that mean the law is inconsistent?
- dagmx 3y ago
  No it doesn’t, because the cases are completely different. Google engaged in anti competitive practices by discouraging competing stores. Apple doesn’t have competing stores so there’s nothing to compete against. The law is consistent in that regard because of the scope of the subject matter.
  - beaned 3y ago
    That seems even more monopolistic?
    - dagmx 3y ago
      Monopolies aren’t illegal. Certainly not within your own ecosystem. What matters is if using the monopoly position is used to impede competition. epic could not prove Apple was a monopoly outside their ecosystem. They could prove that Google abused their power within their ecosystem however.
  - chairhairair 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - dagmx 3y ago
      [flagged]
      - smoldesu 3y ago
        I think there are a lot of counterexamples of courts settling on contradictory, controversial or misinformed verdicts.
- xenadu02 3y ago
asah 3y ago
Pretty sweet for Android users...
- jbverschoor 3y ago
  Why would you think so? Google lost
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dang 3y ago
Related ongoing thread: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020365 - Jan 2024 (238 comments)
ken47 3y ago
Imagine a world where laws forced Apple to enable feature an Apple-compatible version of the Play Store alongside the App Store and vice versa. How would that not be a net positive for the mobile device ecosystem?
DreamGen 3y ago
What if you do not link the the alternative payment option form the app? Do you still have to pay commission to Apple for purchases made outside? What if there was a standardized way to discover these alternative payment links, so users would automatically go there to find a discounted price.
remon 3y ago
Sort of a tangent but I feel it's a little troublesome that the Supreme Court can deny appeals without even a paragraph of motivation. Clearly they need to filter based on some criteria or another so denying the appeal is fine. But I feel that shouldn't ever occur without some sort of reason as to why. I enjoy listening to the oral arguments for certain cases in the USSC (https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio/2023 https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio/2..., it's interesting) and I can't help but feel that a lot of the cases that are accepted are of somewhat less importance than "can an effective monopoly be forced into less monopolistic business practices" or some variation of that.
honeybadger1 3y ago
A win for the consumer is somehow also a loss for the consumer(according to HN commenters).

197 points by jmsflknr 3y ago

I wish we could use our powerful handheld computing devices as if we owned them again. Steam should make a smart phone, fully open under the hood, decent specs, no walled gardens except optional ones.

JohnMakin 3y ago
Side-loading apps is not the mecca you think it is. It's going to create even more walled gardens, except this time, companies like meta don't have a fear of being yanked from the app store when they engage in practices that are harmful to user privacy. Should a mega corp like apple be the gatekeepers for this kind of stuff? In an ideal world no, but at least they are the only ones doing it.
- aspenmayer 3y ago
  And if/when that happens and in the interim, end user can install a proper VPN and firewall on their iDevice instead of what we have now. https://www.michaelhorowitz.com/VPNs.on.iOS.are.scam.php https://www.michaelhorowitz.com/VPNs.on.iOS.are.scam.php
- kelnos 3y ago
  People could, y'know, just not install the Facebook app, if they're unhappy with Meta's privacy practices. Of course, given that Meta's privacy practices are already atrocious, and people still use Facebook, I guess maybe it just doesn't matter? I agree that side-loading apps is no panacea; I use Android, and while I do have the F-Droid store installed, and even side-load a small utility app or two that I've written myself but can't be bothered to make publicly available, I'm actually not sure I know anyone in person who uses anything but the Play Store. But having the option there, to me -- even if I didn't use it -- is huge. Hell, having the option to install a third-party OS on the phone (even though I don't do it, because it would involve too many compromises to my daily use) is huge. That should be the default, not this locked-down nonsense Apple forces on everyone. It's just sad to me that so many people accept it as ok and normal.
  - gretch 3y ago
    > People could, y'know, just not install the Facebook app, if they're unhappy with Meta's privacy practices. Of course, given that Meta's privacy practices are already atrocious, and people still use Facebook, I guess maybe it just doesn't matter? Just apply this same reasoning to Apple iPhones. Everyone says sideloading is a big deal, but it turns out that when the phones don't have sideloading, people still use them anyway. I guess maybe it just doesn't matter.
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      Alternatively, hold both companies to higher standards through regulation and start treating technology as a secular field of businesses instead of the World Cup.
      - gretch 3y ago
        Your “higher standard” is only “higher” for your preferences. Personally I’m happy with both the operation of Facebook and Apple. I do not wish a 3rd party with no track record of technical innovation, and especially not the US government, come and make some rules about what is a “higher standard”.
        smoldesu 3y ago
        > Personally I’m happy with both the operation of Facebook and Apple. You should have higher standards too, then.
        gretch 3y ago
        You are someone who is convinced that those with different preferences than you must be dumb or irrational. My standards are plenty high. They just aren’t aligned with your world views.
        smoldesu 3y ago
- tick_tock_tick 3y ago
  I mean the reason Apple took action against Facebook was because they were trying to get traction on their own Ads platform. They didn't stop tracking on iphone they just made it so they were the only ones that can do it. Aka they used their position to crush competition not to increase privacy. They absolutely could have taken the opportunity to improve privacy overall but that would have limited their own ads platform so they didn't.
fsflover 3y ago
There are already GNU/Linux phones running a FLOSS, desktop OS, without walled gardens: Librem 5 and Pinephone.
- kelnos 3y ago
  Unfortunately they don't have the market share to have the clout to do a lot of things users really want. I run Linux on my laptop as my daily-driver and sole OS; I've been mostly doing this for more than 20 years now (with some brief dalliances with macOS here and there that never stuck). But my phone runs Google's stock Pixel version of Android. While there are other examples, a single example I think suffices: Google Pay. I like contactless payments, and I like not having to fish around for a credit card (or just not having to bring a credit card, say if I'm out for a run). What are the chances of a Google/Apple-Pay-workalike app ever appearing on the Librem 5 or Pinephone? Seems pretty slim to me. I'm not saying these phones have no value; clearly they do. And the world is better off with their existence. But they are not a realistic choice for most people.
  - fsflover 3y ago
    > I like contactless payments, and I like not having to fish around for a credit card Yes, unfortunately, if you want the freedom and control, you have to pay for that with some compromises. > What are the chances of a Google/Apple-Pay-workalike app ever appearing on the Librem 5 or Pinephone? Waydroid allows to run Android apps. It works fine on my Librem 5, unless apps require verified Android environment. Unfortunately Librem 5 has no NFC at all. AFAIK Pinephone offered a case which enabled NFC functionality.
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      Credit cards and contactless payments alike are a far bigger form of control than phone OSes. Bank, government, and advertisers watching your purchases, building a profile, taking their cut, and banning any buyers/sellers they want. In real life, not just digital. If I were worried enough about control to use a FOSS phone, I'd for sure be paying with cash too. But I'm not. Also, cell carrier will be tracking your location and giving that info out. Not sure if that can be avoided, but maybe a prepaid plan helps anonymize it.
rstupek 3y ago
I'm wondering when that was ever true? Until the advent of the iphone, from my recollection phone devices didn't allow you to install whatever you wanted. In fact they were even more restrictive for developers than they are now
- stonogo 3y ago
  Tons of counterexamples: Windows Mobile, PalmOS, Symbian, even dumbphone operating systems like S30 allowed J2EE apps. Of these, the strictest control was exercised in the J2EE ecosystem, which could be (and often was) configured such that only programs signed by the OEM could run. But that was an extreme case, because all smartphones operated with what kids these days called "sideloading." "Sideloading" used to be called "installing" and you didn't need to do it with a specific piece of software run by the company who issued your operating system.
hot_gril 3y ago
Steam feels like a DRM / manufacturer control system more than anything else. It has to be open to launch any of your games, it sorta forces you to install updates to even launch your games (some asterisks there), it disallows downgrading them, a solid number of games are Steam-only, and it shows ads.
- tmtvl 3y ago
  Technically there are games on Steam that don't require the Steam client to be running in order for you to play them. If you google 'Steam DRM-free games' on DuckDuckGo you'll easily find a list.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    Games that are purchased and downloaded on Steam but can be run without it? I didn't know this was a thing without hacks, but yeah there are some that do this out of the box.
  - joemi 3y ago
    > If you _google_ 'Steam DRM-free games' _on DuckDuckGo_ (Emphasis mine) I'm quite amused that this is how language works.

granzymes 3y ago

This leaves in place the bulk of the ruling favoring Apple, but also the elimination of the anti-steerage rules that Epic successfully challenged (sort of, the trial judge mostly did that on her own). So, to summarize, the relevant market is this dispute was the mobile game market (not an iPhone-specific market like Epic wanted), Apple does not have a monopoly in that market, and Apple doesn’t need to charge less in the App Store or for in-app purchases. But, due to California law, Apple cannot prevent developers from informing consumers that lower prices are available outside of the app.

voisin 3y ago
> due to California law Will this lead to a carve out for California users, similar to the carve out they are making for app stores in the EU?
- granzymes 3y ago
  My understanding is “no” (Apple is enjoined against enforcing the rules on anyone), but if we wait a few days we’ll know for sure. Apple’s cert petition at the Supreme Court was basically the argument that’s it’s unfair that a lawsuit from one developer would prevent its anti-steerage language from adhering to any developer.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    > Apple’s cert petition at the Supreme Court was basically the argument that’s it’s unfair that a lawsuit from one developer would prevent its anti-steerage language from adhering to any developer. Regardless of the legality around this, I just don't get that kind of thinking. So anyone who wants to be able to exercise their legal right would have to, individually (or as a class, I guess) take Apple to court over this? That would actually be kinda fun, now that I think about it. Apple getting hit with thousands of lawsuits over the same thing, all of them settled case law, having to spend all that money on lawyers and court fees. This reminds me of a dumb quirk of Italian law. Italy offers citizenship to non-citizen foreigners who can prove an unbroken line of citizenship back to their most recent Italian ancestor who was an Italian citizen. (It's more complicated than that and there are some rules and caveats, but that's the basic idea.) There's a super-misogynistic part of that law that says citizenship cannot be passed through female ancestors prior to 1948. The Italian Supreme Court has ruled that part of the law unconstitutional. But the law is still on the books, and Italy's legislature has not updated it to remove the unconstitutional language, so anyone who wants to use that route to get citizenship has to go to court to do so. It's such a waste of everyone's time and money (well, the lawyers, as usual, make out quite well: a slam-dunk case for them that takes very little effort).

Arnt 3y ago

https://archive.is/gPaPr https://archive.is/gPaPr

xoa 3y ago

"Snubs" doesn't really seem appropriate here as prose. There are plenty of issues with SCOTUS and the US judiciary one could complain about, but a simple one is simply that at the end of the day there is one supreme court of 9 people and they physically can only handle so many cases per year. LOTS or cases of way more fundamental importance then this one get declined every year because only a fraction of those seeking appeal to SCOTUS can possibly get it even if they thought all of them were worthy, which they aren't. At the end of the day this particular case doesn't really seem to rise to that level. There's no big circuit split, no deep constitutional issues, no enormous injustice to individual people, lower courts don't seem to have gotten anything particularly wrong given the current state of the law, and Congress could certainly step in if it wanted in ways much more fine tuned. Each company has plenty of money to be made out of it but that's about it. Neither side got everything they wanted. I'd personally like to see a federal law trying a scalpel first, where at purchase time people can elect to have the ability to add to the root key store of any hardware they buy, or entrust that to the manufacturer instead. That'd preserve most if not all of the benefits for those who don't want to have to deal with that like right now, and wish to pool their collective purchasing power with Apple or whomever to enforce certain standards on developers. But it'd mean anyone who wanted to could also venture forth from the walled garden and small devs who wanted to focus on that could do so. In terms of power balance I think it'd work out pretty well, the biggest players also want to reach the broadest audience and thus would face more restrictions, whereas small focused devs fine catering to a devoted fanbase, or pure open source, would have the most freedom. It's kinda too bad so much of the conversation is binary of "complete jailed garden" like right now vs "devs getting to do whatever they want to everyone whether they like it or not" like on the PC.

thomastjeffery 3y ago
We have millions of people talking about this case today. I find it absurd to argue that it isn't interesting enough to be worth the time.
- granzymes 3y ago
  The Supreme Court does not decide cases: it decides questions. Whether or not the case is interesting, the legal questions the parties asked the Court to resolve were evidently not worth its time.

cubefox 3y ago

> The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld much of Rogers' decision in 2023, finding that Epic had "failed to prove the existence of substantially less restrictive alternatives" to Apple's system. What does this mean? Does Apple even allow any alternatives?

granzymes 3y ago
It means that Epic failed to identify a better way for Apple to collect its 30%/15% fee than mandating developers use its in-app purchase system. Epic’s cert petition at the Supreme Court focused on the argument that it’s unfair that their identified solution needed to be equally or less burdensome, but the Supreme Court turned them away.
- cubefox 3y ago
  To be clear, equally or less burdensome for whom?
  - granzymes 3y ago
    For Apple, since the court found that they have a right to collect their fee.
    - cubefox 3y ago
      Okay, then it's clear why Epic couldn't do anything.
kelnos 3y ago
I assume they mean that you can use an Android phone, instead. Which I think is preposterous, but... there we are.

elpool2 3y ago

It will be interesting to see how far the anti-steering ruling actually goes. Will Apple still be able to block links to a alternative payment options? Or what if the link contains a token that logs you in automatically and goes straight to a payment form that’s almost indistinguishable from an in-app form?

threeseed 3y ago
"Developers may apply for an entitlement to provide a link in their app to a website the developer owns or maintains responsibility for in order to purchase such items." https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/16/apple-revises-us-app-store-rules-to-let-developers-link-to-outside-payment-methods-but-it-will-still-charge-a-commission/ https://9to5mac.com/2024/01/16/apple-revises-us-app-store-ru...
- ko27 3y ago
  Devs just won't add links when informing their users that it's cheaper on their website and Apple can't do anything about it. They are not allowed to ban it according to this ruling.
- elpool2 3y ago
  Thanks and wow, they’re really doing everything imaginable to make it difficult to include such a link. And their rules say the link cannot contain any additional parameters so it rules out the possibility of just linking directly to a payment form. You would have to log in first, then pay.

somenameforme 3y ago

It seems easy to kind of shrug at this, but this does seem quite significant because of many mobile apps are 'free to play.' Apple pocketing 30% of all of these transactions, and forcing users/devs to go through Apple, is a major part of its revenue. And all of those apps now have the option to direct users to alternative payment methods, where they can both charge users substantially less and make more profit doing so. Should be interesting to see what happens!

MBCook 3y ago
I’m curious to see what devs do. On the one hand Apple payments are really frictionless. There is no way 3rd parties can match it. Plus easy to track/cancel. On the other hand a lower price is a lower price. But is it low enough to get enough users to enter a credit card? Combine this with the alternate App Store thing (looks like EU only) and we’re in for some shaking out of what is and is not a good strategy as an app maker with never before seen on iPhone options in the mix.
- kelnos 3y ago
  > On the other hand a lower price is a lower price. But is it low enough to get enough users to enter a credit card? An excellent question. I think the thing is that for the prices that often show up in apps, maybe not? Like, for a $3 app I don't think I'm going to go visit some website, go through their flow, and get out my credit card if I'm only going to save $1. (Ok, I'd probably do it on principle at this point to stick it to Apple, but that's not the same thing.) If I were going to shell out $100, I'd certainly go to the extra trouble to pay $70 instead, though. The dangerous thing is that with all these mobile games that slowly siphon money from you, you might over time end up spending many tens or even hundreds of dollars (where 30% off might be a significant amount of money). But if each transaction is small, you might not think much of the difference of a dollar or so per transaction.
  - eszed 3y ago
    I would expect from a developer's perspective it makes sense to stick with Apple's mechanism until ARR * 0.30 = whatever it costs to run your own solution. (More power to you if you're the developer who can do that from the start, but that won't be most people.) I wonder, though, if the slow siphon becomes more obvious if it's attributed, in a customer's credit card statement, to [Game Co.] instead of [APPL]. I won't be sad if fewer people spend money on those types of games.

nsagent 3y ago

I wonder if this will open the floodgate for more apps to offer free trials through the App Store, with an in-app paywall linking to an external payment processor with lower fees. Basically, Apple gets stuck with the obligation to maintain the App Store, while taking a considerably smaller chunk of the overall pie. Might make them rethink the value proposition of a closed ecosystem if they can't recoup enough of the cost for running the store.

Uvix 3y ago
Not sure why that would lead Apple to opening their devices up. I’d first expect Apple to start charging developers fees for bandwidth usage not tied to a purchase.
londons_explore 3y ago
Even if the store bought in no revenue at all, they'd still run it. The existence of the store sells lots of phones.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
I think apple still gets to collect its 30% in this situation. The ruling was that apps can direct to other payment options but apple can still collect the 30% fee. Only way around the fee I see is to have just a general subscription service and tell users to sign up on the website, giving plausible deniability about where the signup came from.

misnome 3y ago

As I understood this ruling at the time, one major caveat was that they have to open up payment options but are still allowed to demand 30% of the third-party payments, thus making it mostly irrelevant. This article mentions nothing about it - was this interpretation overly pessimistic?

newprint 3y ago
From what I understand, ruling is saying: Apple can't block developers from displaying notification that the app can be bought cheaper elsewhere.
- threeseed 3y ago
  But it won't be cheaper elsewhere since developer still needs to pay the 30% commission.
  - ko27 3y ago
    How would that work? From my previous comment, let's say you add this message (no links): "Buy with Apple Pay, or visit our website and pay 20% less". Nobody knows how many users decided to visit the website instead.
    - threeseed 3y ago
      Total Installs - App Store Installs = Third Party Installs And they know total installs from the notary service.
      - simiones 3y ago
        That doesn't work for in-app purchases, which is almost certainly the majority of revenue.
    - 542458 3y ago
      It would work the same as many other revenue sharing agreements out there (including those for Epic’s own Unreal Engine). Yes, there’s no technical mechanism to keep you from screwing the other party (and small-scale fraud will likely go undetected), but there are contractual/legal mechanisms.

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

> Today's denial of petitions for certiorari means that Apple has mostly run out of legal options to prevent changes to its App Store policies now that multiple courts have found its "anti-steering" language anticompetitive. So the courts agree that Apple uses anticompetitive practices.

SllX 3y ago
A court found that Apple used a specific business practice found to be anticompetitive, this was upheld on appeal and SCOTUS declined to address any legal questions. So, to restate what you said more correctly: a court has found Apple used an anticompetitive practice and an Appeals court upheld it or “agreed” if you prefer. Law is a whole lot more boring when you murder the rhetorical intent in how people interpret it with extreme prejudice.
MBCook 3y ago
> So the courts agree that Apple uses AN anticompetitive PRACTICE. Fixed it. They said not allowing developers to say it was possible to pay externally was against the law. I think a California law? They did not say that about Apple’s fee, the existence of only Apple’s App Store, or anything else. It was limited to anti-steering.
tick_tock_tick 3y ago
Yes, that's correct. Hopefully some of their other anti-competitiveness practices get ruled against but for now it's rather limited to some of their most flagrant behavior.
kelnos 3y ago
As siblings point out, the courts agree to one single anti-competitive practice. The thing here is that the only thing Epic won on was a fairly clear California law, the anti-steering stuff. While this is good news, this isn't really groundbreaking: it's an unsurprising legal result, given that the CA law exists, and doesn't conflict with any federal law. The bits where Epic lost were much more significant, and were related to plain-vanilla anti-trust law. Law which I had hoped would apply here and break up Apple's iOS app distribution monopoly.

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beaned 3y ago

Does this mean there are separate rulings for Google and Apple? Does that mean the law is inconsistent?

dagmx 3y ago
No it doesn’t, because the cases are completely different. Google engaged in anti competitive practices by discouraging competing stores. Apple doesn’t have competing stores so there’s nothing to compete against. The law is consistent in that regard because of the scope of the subject matter.
- beaned 3y ago
  That seems even more monopolistic?
  - dagmx 3y ago
    Monopolies aren’t illegal. Certainly not within your own ecosystem. What matters is if using the monopoly position is used to impede competition. epic could not prove Apple was a monopoly outside their ecosystem. They could prove that Google abused their power within their ecosystem however.
- chairhairair 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dagmx 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - smoldesu 3y ago
      I think there are a lot of counterexamples of courts settling on contradictory, controversial or misinformed verdicts.
xenadu02 3y ago

asah 3y ago

Pretty sweet for Android users...

jbverschoor 3y ago
Why would you think so? Google lost

deleted 3y ago

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dang 3y ago

Related ongoing thread: US developers can offer non-app store purchasing, Apple still collect commission - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020365 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39020365 - Jan 2024 (238 comments)

ken47 3y ago

Imagine a world where laws forced Apple to enable feature an Apple-compatible version of the Play Store alongside the App Store and vice versa. How would that not be a net positive for the mobile device ecosystem?

DreamGen 3y ago

What if you do not link the the alternative payment option form the app? Do you still have to pay commission to Apple for purchases made outside? What if there was a standardized way to discover these alternative payment links, so users would automatically go there to find a discounted price.

remon 3y ago

Sort of a tangent but I feel it's a little troublesome that the Supreme Court can deny appeals without even a paragraph of motivation. Clearly they need to filter based on some criteria or another so denying the appeal is fine. But I feel that shouldn't ever occur without some sort of reason as to why. I enjoy listening to the oral arguments for certain cases in the USSC (https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio/2023 https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio/2..., it's interesting) and I can't help but feel that a lot of the cases that are accepted are of somewhat less importance than "can an effective monopoly be forced into less monopolistic business practices" or some variation of that.

honeybadger1 3y ago

A win for the consumer is somehow also a loss for the consumer(according to HN commenters).