If you haven't watched Tim Sweeney's appearance on Lex Fridman (which went live two days ago ironically), he discusses this battle against Apple, which he's maintained at a furious pace for years. He goes into detail on how the previous guidelines stifle innovation, how app developers are basically forced to implement anti-consumer practices to maintain the ridiculous costs of achieving success on the app store, etc.

His Crusade for open platforms/services in general is very very respectable.

Fortnite, in my opinion, has been a gold standard for F2P monetization. No gambling, no randomized loot boxes, etc. Compare that with Counter Strike 2, and I can't imagine how much money Epic has left on the table by choosing this path. So I give Tim a lot of credit for maintaining such a principled stance.

This is what bad management at Apple looks like. They were now forced to cut off the spice flow that is millions of dollars of IAPs from games in their coveted services pie chart because they got cocky. Roblox alone is going to show up on their balance chart. Epic throwing water on an oil fire with their comments make me grin, they are the reason Apple lowered AppStore pricing, and now they are the reason Apple can no longer collect rent from Patreon (which collects rent themselves). Epic won due to Apple's on hubris.

Sigh, not that I expected anything else from Apple at this point but of course they only change the rules for the US.

My main takeaway from this is that Luca Maestri was a blight on Apple. He steered this company into the most malicious of compliance schemes that only has increased their regulatory attack surface. On top of that, he's the one who discouraged apple from making huge investments in compute for LLMs that threatens to derail Apple and the iPhone's primacy as the gateway to information.

Crazy. I thought hackernews didn’t care because this happened yesterday and I never saw anything!

We’re updating our app in a couple days this will save a LOT of money.

We will kick users out to web and pass a JWT in the url with a short lifespan to log the user in on web and then prompt for Apple Pay or credit card. Then a link back to our app’s deep link

Related threads,

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43852145 ("Apple violated antitrust ruling, judge finds (wsj.com)" — 585 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43856795 ("Judge rules Apple executive lied under oath, makes criminal contempt referral (thebignewsletter.com)" — 340 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43859814 ("A senior Apple exec could be jailed in Epic case (9to5mac.com)" — 94 comments)

Only in the US feels like shooting themselves in the foot again. The EU is already cracking down on them for their malicious compliance with the DMA, and it’s only a matter of time before similar pressure builds

> … except for apps on the United States storefront, the apps may not…

US based app developers hosting apps on app stores in other countries should also be covered by the injunction. What am I missing? Is the injunction only covering US based app market? And does not cover app developers?

Tim, come back. The deed is yet to be completed.

> In the European Union, developers can also distribute notarized iOS and iPadOS apps from alternative app marketplaces and directly from their website.

Well, this was only possible because the EU had pushed hard toward this openness otherwise, we wouldn't expect Apple to do this.

> For everything else there is always the open Internet. If the App Store model and guidelines or alternative app marketplaces and Notarization for iOS and iPadOS apps are not best for your app or business idea that’s okay, we provide Safari for a great web experience too.

IMO, Safari on iOS do not have a great experience for web devs who are willing to distribute their apps as PWAs, especially when there is no alternative browser that provides additional capabilities, they are all skinned Safaris. Take for instance the Vibration API [1], it has been supported since a long time in Chrome mobile but not in Safari. I believe it does an excellent job in giving a PWA some native-feeling when being used. Still though, I still miss that haptic feedback is not yet supported by Chrome. Bluetooth [2] is yet another missing API in Safari.

Of course, for these (and other) web APIs to be abused by developers, I encourage browser vendors to disable them by default when requested from a website and enable them ONLY on user consent. On the other hand, when a user installs the PWA, these privileges should be granted automatically with the ability to disable them by the user.

To finalize, another excellent API that facilitate the installation of PWAs by triggering an install prompt [3] is not supported in iOS Safari, which does really makes me wonder: "How Safari provides a great web experience?"

___________________

1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Vibration_A...

2. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Bluetoo...

3. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Progressive_web...

In the same article:

    3.1.1 In-App Purchase:
    If you want to unlock features or functionality within your app, (by way of example: subscriptions, in-game currencies, game levels, access to premium content, or unlocking a full version), you must use in-app purchase. Apps may not use their own mechanisms to unlock content or functionality, such as license keys, augmented reality markers, QR codes, cryptocurrencies and cryptocurrency wallets, etc.

They should work with Google and implement a ban on apps that constantly forget your login information.

>The App Review Guidelines have been updated for compliance with a United States court decision regarding buttons, external links, and other calls to action in apps. These changes affect apps distributed on the United States storefront of the App Store, and are as follows:

...

> 3.1.3: The prohibition on encouraging users to use a purchasing method other than in-app purchase does not apply on the United States storefront.

> 3.1.3(a): The External Link Account entitlement is not required for apps on the United States storefront to include buttons, external links, or other calls to action.

The difference between the quality of software in the Apple App Store versus the Google Play Store is dramatic, in my opinion. Apple has succeeded in increasing the bar to entry and standards to the point where a lot of the blatant trash/advertising malware present in the Google Play Store is caught by the net of the App Store submission process (and the $99 developer fee).

I do believe the court when they say that Apple has engaged in seriously anticompetitive behavior, and I don't look to Apple as some sort of altruistic honest company, but I also am curious to see if this reduces the average 'value' of a given app in the App Store. On the other hand, it could encourage the development of high-quality software since devs aren't paying the 30%+ tax on App Store sales.

I don't get it. Why is Apple changing this in the US now? Is it because the allegation of them lying under oath and being subjected to a criminal review? If so, how does this change absolves them or minimises their fate during the upcoming criminal trial against them?

This should be applicable across the world, not just US.

Are the requirements still there for e.g. the EU storefront?

Because all other aspects of their businesses except services beat expectations. So we can't really say if this change will be permanent indefinitely.

Apple constantly says paying through the app store is better for consumers, so why are they so hesitant to simply compete? Unless...

Apple wrote the textbook on malicious compliance.

Why does it have to be a link to a website? Why can’t the app just let me pay, potentially not using Apple Pay?

Do these rules only apply to the United States?

Hopefully the criminal charge referrals don't disappear.

A win is a win

Apple store needs to die. We have the web.

So, what keeps all app developers from charging 0 to "buy" the app from the store, then nickel and dime the user inside the app?

This really feels like the beginning of things way worse.

At the risk of not piling on to the Apple dislike here, if you use a non-Apple payment system, and you have an issue, you now need to go to the specific company and payment system, you can no longer demand your money back by dealing with a single company. I presume even more scam apps will take your money and ignore your complaints; imagine trying to sue a company in some foreign country to try to get your money back if they stole it. When Apple controlled the payment system, Apple could be sued in your home country. Of course this happens on the web too, but apps on your phone very different from web apps.

Most customers are probably going to assume your a con artist if you don't use the official IAP.

When I use mobile apps I like being able to do all my spending in one place. I want to be able to go to subscriptions and cancel everything I don't need at once.

Just yesterday I had to manually stop a PayPal payment renewal since the merchants cancellation process doesn't work ( 2 emails to customer service and I get the vibe this is intentional).

That's not something I want to have to keep doing.

I can imagine Epic being able to convince people to use a 3rd party payment provider, but that won't happen for smaller studios.