I'm extremely surprised that Apple would engage in something that could in court be perceived as retaliatory against someone who is filing a complaint regarding anti competitive behavior.
The definition of anti trust is to use your position in one market to gain an unfair advantage in an other market. By denying Epic access in the game engine market, Apple is trying to get Epic to fold in the game distribution market. Thats text book antitrust behavior.
It is shocking to me that Apples lawyers, would allow Apple to so blatantly threaten Epic in this way. They are providing a clear example of anti competitive behavior, for Epic to use in future litigation. You would think Apple has good enough lawyers to put a stop to this self defeating behavior.
> The definition of anti trust is to use your position in one market to gain an unfair advantage in an other market.
Your definition is missing a key point, which is you have to possess sufficient market power in the primary market in order to use to gain an advantage. If you lack market power, it doesn't matter what you do because you lack the ability to coerce consumers. As the Supreme Court put it:
If one of a dozen food stores in a community were to refuse to sell flour unless the buyer also took sugar it would hardly tend to restrain competition in sugar if its competitors were ready and able to sell flour by itself. (Northern Pac. R. Co. v. United States)
> It is shocking to me that Apples lawyers, would allow Apple to so blatantly threaten Epic in this way. They are providing a clear example of anti competitive behavior, for Epic to use in future litigation.
Epic violated the terms of Apple's developer agreement by deliberately hiding their payment processing code to get it past app review. Hiding functionality is considered an egregious violation of the developer program and grounds for termination of your entire account. Apple has the right to terminate their contract for that violation alone, regardless of whether you think the terms relating to in-app purchases are lawful or not.
Framing this as retaliatory or a threat is hyperbole. One party violated the terms of a contract, so the other party is exercising their right to terminate.
> You would think Apple has good enough lawyers to put a stop to this self defeating behavior.
Do you really think you have a better grasp of antitrust law than their legal team?
Technically, Apple is completely in the wrong here and in any country with a sane justice system they would lose this case due to blatant anticompetitive behaviour.
However, Apple is also one of the largest companies of USA and a quite successful one. At that size they must have considerably good lobbying efforts, political class might also have connections to Apple through shares etc. They might go and say that enabling third party vendors will cause thousands to lose their jobs at Apple. They basically got a huge amount of political influence and I’m sure they will use it for this case.
How much political influence Epic games have? Zero? Perhaps not zero but definitely not at the level of Apple. Hence, this case might not be a straightforward win for Epic.
It is good though, perhaps some of the fortnite players will understand why antitrust laws are needed and perhaps influence the justice system once they grow up.
It’s good for iPhone users though. Hopefully we’ll finally be allowed to compile apps ourselves and install them without approval (and without having to reinstall them every few days.)
I'm extremely glad to see that Microsoft is publicly stating in court what many indie developers already thought: Apple is throwing millions of unrelated game companies under the bus, just to get their revenge on Epic.
In my opinion, it doesn't get any more retaliatory than that, which means Apple is most likely very far down the wrong side of antitrust law.
It may be (and, I guess, probably is) written with Microsoft’s help or even be mostly written by them, but I think that’s a personal statement by somebody who claims authority by specifying his job.
I also do not read anything there that will affect this round of this fight, which is about the question whether an urgent ruling has to be made that Apple should _now_ be forced to chance its stance.
I doubt that a major company would let someone at this level of management make such a "personal statement" without signing off on it internally. Even as an individual contributor at such a company, you would invite quite a bit of trouble with this.
I still don't understand what "Denying access to the SDK" is supposed to mean. Aren't the iOS and Mac development tools free to download without a developer account? Isn't publishing on the app stores the only thing that not having an active corporate account prevents? Apple haven't said that they'll block anyone using Unreal Engine, right? I thought this was just about signing keys, in which case other people using the engine should be fine...
In fact, does anyone else who deliberately tries to sneak things past the review process get to keep their developer account _and_ the offending version of the app available? Couldn't this just be Apple going "see, we treat them the same as everyone else"?
They're free to download, but IIRC you're still abiding by their EULA. Apple are threatening to revoke Epic's EULA license. If that happens, Epic would be using the SDK "illegally". (This is all speculation, IANAL, feel free to correct me if you have a better legal understanding of this)
The letter is only in regards to the Unreal Engine being blocked. It will directly impact Microsoft and other game developers not directly involved in this fight.
They did not mention Fortnite or alternate stores at all.
Yes. If iPhone as appliance doesn’t stick, Xbox as appliance shouldn’t either. Both are vertically integrated and curated experiences on digital rights managed “consoles”.
Epic may have thrown Unreal Engine under the bus, but Microsoft needs the law to recognize it and Apple compete as fully integrated experiences not unbundled hardware separate from app stores.
That said, a lot of games money is going to iOS that used to funnel to consoles. So they’re of two minds.
The PR move is support Epic. The business move is keep consoles vertically integrated and own curation.
Apple succeeded in what Google has failed with, namely to put value on quality apps. A few small missteps and it will become like Android or Windows Phone.
[+] [-] quelsolaar|5 years ago|reply
The definition of anti trust is to use your position in one market to gain an unfair advantage in an other market. By denying Epic access in the game engine market, Apple is trying to get Epic to fold in the game distribution market. Thats text book antitrust behavior.
It is shocking to me that Apples lawyers, would allow Apple to so blatantly threaten Epic in this way. They are providing a clear example of anti competitive behavior, for Epic to use in future litigation. You would think Apple has good enough lawyers to put a stop to this self defeating behavior.
[+] [-] nodamage|5 years ago|reply
Your definition is missing a key point, which is you have to possess sufficient market power in the primary market in order to use to gain an advantage. If you lack market power, it doesn't matter what you do because you lack the ability to coerce consumers. As the Supreme Court put it:
If one of a dozen food stores in a community were to refuse to sell flour unless the buyer also took sugar it would hardly tend to restrain competition in sugar if its competitors were ready and able to sell flour by itself. (Northern Pac. R. Co. v. United States)
> It is shocking to me that Apples lawyers, would allow Apple to so blatantly threaten Epic in this way. They are providing a clear example of anti competitive behavior, for Epic to use in future litigation.
Epic violated the terms of Apple's developer agreement by deliberately hiding their payment processing code to get it past app review. Hiding functionality is considered an egregious violation of the developer program and grounds for termination of your entire account. Apple has the right to terminate their contract for that violation alone, regardless of whether you think the terms relating to in-app purchases are lawful or not.
Framing this as retaliatory or a threat is hyperbole. One party violated the terms of a contract, so the other party is exercising their right to terminate.
> You would think Apple has good enough lawyers to put a stop to this self defeating behavior.
Do you really think you have a better grasp of antitrust law than their legal team?
[+] [-] DethNinja|5 years ago|reply
However, Apple is also one of the largest companies of USA and a quite successful one. At that size they must have considerably good lobbying efforts, political class might also have connections to Apple through shares etc. They might go and say that enabling third party vendors will cause thousands to lose their jobs at Apple. They basically got a huge amount of political influence and I’m sure they will use it for this case.
How much political influence Epic games have? Zero? Perhaps not zero but definitely not at the level of Apple. Hence, this case might not be a straightforward win for Epic.
It is good though, perhaps some of the fortnite players will understand why antitrust laws are needed and perhaps influence the justice system once they grow up.
[+] [-] swiley|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] misnome|5 years ago|reply
What is the "other market" in this scenario?
[+] [-] eqtn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fxtentacle|5 years ago|reply
In my opinion, it doesn't get any more retaliatory than that, which means Apple is most likely very far down the wrong side of antitrust law.
[+] [-] Someone|5 years ago|reply
I also do not read anything there that will affect this round of this fight, which is about the question whether an urgent ruling has to be made that Apple should _now_ be forced to chance its stance.
[+] [-] microtherion|5 years ago|reply
I doubt that a major company would let someone at this level of management make such a "personal statement" without signing off on it internally. Even as an individual contributor at such a company, you would invite quite a bit of trouble with this.
[+] [-] misnome|5 years ago|reply
In fact, does anyone else who deliberately tries to sneak things past the review process get to keep their developer account _and_ the offending version of the app available? Couldn't this just be Apple going "see, we treat them the same as everyone else"?
[+] [-] smileybarry|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EricE|5 years ago|reply
What? Didn’t think so.
[+] [-] hnick|5 years ago|reply
They did not mention Fortnite or alternate stores at all.
[+] [-] SheinhardtWigCo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 8note|5 years ago|reply
Best Buy, for instance
[+] [-] anoncake|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shrewduser|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Terretta|5 years ago|reply
Epic may have thrown Unreal Engine under the bus, but Microsoft needs the law to recognize it and Apple compete as fully integrated experiences not unbundled hardware separate from app stores.
That said, a lot of games money is going to iOS that used to funnel to consoles. So they’re of two minds.
The PR move is support Epic. The business move is keep consoles vertically integrated and own curation.
/2c
[+] [-] stale2002|5 years ago|reply
The iPhone is has 10 times a larger market than Internet Explorer did when it lost the anti trust case, for comparison.
[+] [-] danielscrubs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dybber|5 years ago|reply
They should only be vetting the privacy and security of apps, and let users decide what is crap.