It’s all about money. I don’t think epic wants a new App Store. In fact I do t think the majority of developers with legitimate complaints with the App Store want competing app stores.
They all want, from what I can boil down to, the majority of the time, two things:
1. Control over payments (to cut out the 30%)
2. More control over releases and updates (particularly upgrade pricing)
I think if Apple caved in on these all this would go away.
Likely, that’s about all we will see from a successful lawsuit too.
It’s never been about the App Store being the only game in town. It’s all about reviews, fees, release schedules and pricing mechanics. I don’t think the consumer wins if there are multiple App Stores. I do think the consumer and smaller developers may win if there is some shift around the above issues, though
I think 30% is excessive but as a developer my biggest gripe with the AppStore is definitely the tight grip Apple has over what's published. You might work for years on an app and all that effort can vanish into thin air if Apple decides they don't want it.
Retroactively! It'd be one thing if it was up-front rejections, but the internet is full of horror stories from developers who suddenly found that Apple had decided their product was no longer okay and that their customers didn't matter, blocking future updates. Not even necessarily taking it off the store, just ensuring it can never get bug fixes.
Well you have the extremism bias. Only people that are really mad at apple will voice their opinion. You probably won't hear from the thousands or more of developers who have no problem with publishing on Apple platforms. Since it's nothing out of the ordinary they don't go out of the way to comment how awesome it is to publish on there.
And also what I've seen with these stories that there is always a human from Apple App Store review involved, the conlusion often are a phone call with an apple rep or something like that. That's one of the things that's often not true in cases like Google - no humans to reach.
So true sometimes Apple pulls an app, unrightfully, like Amphetamine or etc. but they usually reach out back and you can talk to them.
Thats where Case #1 comes in. This wouldn't be such an issue for them if it weren't for the 30%. I think you could make a separate argument about consumer transparency in this arena, but I don't know how much that'd hold water, much the same as Safari being the default browser isn't anyone's complaint in these antitrust hearings.
One argument in favor of multiple App Stores is that Apple has historically been very aggressive about globally banning entire product categories they dislike or apps that offend the governments of foreign countries. Apple can continue to exercise this discretion without harming consumer choice if they offer sideloading for end users (or at least make their browser more capable, with full support for PWAs and modern web APIs)
They all want, from what I can boil down to, the majority of the time, two things:
1. Control over payments (to cut out the 30%)
2. More control over releases and updates (particularly upgrade pricing)
I think if Apple caved in on these all this would go away.
Likely, that’s about all we will see from a successful lawsuit too.
It’s never been about the App Store being the only game in town. It’s all about reviews, fees, release schedules and pricing mechanics. I don’t think the consumer wins if there are multiple App Stores. I do think the consumer and smaller developers may win if there is some shift around the above issues, though