> The termination of Epic Games Sweden AB’s Apple developer account was communicated in a letter from Mark Perry, a lawyer representing Apple, to Epic’s lawyers:
> Mr. Sweeney’s response to that request was wholly insufficient and not credible. It boiled down to an unsupported “trust us.” History shows, however, that Epic is verifiably untrustworthy, hence the request for meaningful commitments. And the minimal assurances in Mr. Sweeney’s curt response were swiftly undercut by a litany of public attacks on Apple’s policies, compliance plan, and business model. As just one example: https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1762243725533532587?s=20.
Maybe Tim sent more than a two sentence reply to Phil to get it straightened out. It's anyone's guess at this point.
I don't really understand the notion that Sweeney's original response was terse or insufficient. He said exactly what needed to be said (good faith effort to follow the rules) succinctly and professionally. Should he have offered a pinky swear or a blood oath? Or an essay pledging his allegiance? I generally like Apple and their products but in this instance they came across as bitter and petty.
I agree, but this is missing the point. It was never about Sweeney’s response. Apple was never going to accept any response given, in the same way that an Alabama cop who pulls over a driver for being black is not going to leave without finding some “reason” for an arrest.
What then would be sufficient? Or are you saying it's simply OK for Apple to ban a major company from their app store? Before you say that, keep in mind that Apple has over 50% of smartphone market share -- they aren't "just another company", should they really be able to decide for that many people that they're not allowed to use Epic's product?
Also I should point out that there's a significant difference between breaking a contract mutually agreed upon and negotiated by two companies, versus breaking a ToS that's forced upon you. Epic's "rule breaking" was essentially a legal strategy to force Apple to legally justify their control. It wasn't some random hooliganism.
Business is an at-will arrangement, at least in the free parts of the world. If Apple straight up doesn't want to do business with Epic and can even point to prior breaches and violations of terms as justification, more power to them.
Remember the classic and often seen disclaimer: "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone."
> Business is an at-will arrangement, at least in the free parts of the world
Funny, because part of what makes the free parts of the world "free" is competition, which is exactly what Apple is trying to stifle.
Also it's funny you cite that disclaimer about right of refusal, because in fact, there are plenty of discrimination laws that address just that and in general there are reasons you can and can't refuse service, legally speaking.
> Epic wasn't forced to sign anything.
Sure, plenty of businesses just love to ignore >50% of the market. I'm sure their investors would completely understand.
> 1. Epic isn't a part of a protected class. Please stop adding to the noise of diluting the meaning of the word "discrimination".
You're the one that cited right of refusal *shrug*
> 2. Epic violated mutually agreed upon terms in cases prior, which Apple can rightfully cite in future references.
"Mutually agreed upon" is a hilarious way of putting it. Epic rebelled against a bad system. More importantly, they won. The law is more important now than Apple's rules, and the fact that Apple backed down shows that they know that.
> 3. Apple customers are free to choose Android or Windows or any other platform with Epic software. Competition, baby!
As an Apple customer, this pisses me off. I have no desire to switch but I also have no desire for Apple to act in this way. Epic's win is good for customers, only Apple fanboys or investors are upset by this.
> 4. If you want to do business with someone, you and them both agree to and abide by terms set forth. If you don't like the terms, you renegotiate and if that doesn't pan out you terminate the agreement according to terms therein or otherwise as amicably as possible and go on your way.
They did renegotiate... through the courts. There are reasons we have antitrust laws and anti-monopoly laws. You cant have any sort of reasonable negotiation when one side is a 900 pound gorilla. Regulation matters when it comes to market access
> 5. Bluntly speaking, Epic might need Apple but Apple doesn't need Epic.
So your point is that Apple is a mega-giant that doesn't feel harm from banning a smaller competitor? You're basically making my point for me.
> If you want to do business with someone, you and them both agree to and abide by terms set forth. If you don't like the terms, you renegotiate and if that doesn't pan out you terminate the agreement according to terms therein or otherwise as amicably as possible and go on your way.
Well no. Instead of that, if the other party is required by law to do business with you, then you can use government force to make them do so.
And if Apple disagrees, then they are perfectly within their right to shutdown their EU operations and lose tens of billions of dollars I guess.
But the rest of us are perfectly willing to use democratically enacted laws, as they are intended.
> but Apple doesn't need Epic
They need the EU though. And if they don't comply with the law then they will be fined many billions of dollars, or be shut down entirely in the EU.
> If Apple straight up doesn't want to do business with Epic and can even point to prior breaches and violations of terms as justification, more power to them.
This would be true, if Apple hadn't positioned themselves as gatekeeper to running software on a significant portion of the world's personal computers. If Apple wants full say over who they do business with all it has to do is allow its users to install software distributed by parties they do not do business with.
More likely that the request for more information on this case from the EU commission to Apple triggered the walk back. At least the EU Commissioner for the internal market is happy about the reverse: https://twitter.com/ThierryBreton/status/1766167580497117464
Yikes I hate that Thierry is using "#freefortnite". You can be completely on board with the DMA but still see Epic's behavior as entirely profit motivated and "freeing Fortnite" should not be any official's priority. Epic is not some oppressed minority that needs saving.
> You can be completely on board with the DMA but still see Epic's behavior as entirely profit motivated and "freeing Fortnite" should not be any official's priority.
The Digital Markets Act is all about profit-motivated businesses. It regulates markets, not charities. It's not anti-profit at all, just pro-competition, and Apple was attempting to stifle competition.
VisionOS is not consider a gatekeeper my the DMA, and despite the platform supporting it Valve has made no effort to expand their game store to Android. It is doubtful that they will work on an iOS game distribution platform.
"better"? You're giving Epic too much credit. Just see the Play Store competitors like Samsung or Huawei: Full of ads, and in general a terrible experience.
Isn't that the functional purpose of hashtags? So that people interested in a topic can find information about it? Wouldn't this tweet be highly relevant to people searching with that tag?
Every large company is, by nature, amoral. All the pro-social stances or whatever are generally just window dressing and PR. Individuals can be moral, but for-profit corporations past a certain size just are too abstract of an entity with too many people of competing interests to ascribe morality to. We shouldn't care about intentions, just whether they're doing something we agree with or not.
It's literally a Digital MARKETS Act. Markets are all about developing healthy profitable businesses. They certainly are not going to be bothered that Epic, a profitable business, wants a fair playing field to compete on.
It's not about Epic. It's about Apple wantonly violating EU laws. The target simply happened to be Epic.
That being said: it's probably a good thing it was Epic that Apple went after; Apple would probably have gotten away with going after a smaller company.
While the outcome as it stands might be okay, they should still proceed with the request for more information so that they can better guard against removal of access in cases that they do not agree with.
What's to prevent them from changing their mind and blocking Epic again? What if Tim Sweeney says something else to hurt Apple's feelings in the future? Apple has too much free rein over removing access to this market, and while it may be a market that Apple has made, the EU is clearly requiring Apple to open up the market for others with the only restrictions being those where the app store or the apps themselves are damaging to consumers in the marketplace.
> they should still proceed with the request for more information so that they can better guard against removal of access in cases that they do not agree with.
They almost certainly are, which is why the reasoning of EU’s predictable involvement was what triggered Apple’s reinstatement of Epic’s account seems dubious to me.
> The termination of Epic Games Sweden AB’s Apple developer account was communicated in a letter from Mark Perry, a lawyer representing Apple, to Epic’s lawyers:
> Mr. Sweeney’s response to that request was wholly insufficient and not credible. It boiled down to an unsupported “trust us.” History shows, however, that Epic is verifiably untrustworthy, hence the request for meaningful commitments. And the minimal assurances in Mr. Sweeney’s curt response were swiftly undercut by a litany of public attacks on Apple’s policies, compliance plan, and business model. As just one example: https://x.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1762243725533532587?s=20.
Maybe Tim sent more than a two sentence reply to Phil to get it straightened out. It's anyone's guess at this point.
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[0]: https://daringfireball.net/2024/03/apple_epic_developer_acco...