It’s happening again!
So they’re wilfully ignoring the EU’s Digital Markets Act and a US court-ordered injunction that prevents them from punishing developers for trying to circumvent the use of the App Store for in-app purchases, after one of their execs was caught lying under oath and potentially facing criminal repercussions.
I’m not the biggest fan of Epic Games, but I really want to see this backfire spectacularly. Apple’s business practices are so bad that it makes me want to see Tim Sweeney kick Tim Cook’s ass in court.
I personally always root for the underdog when I have no stake. I thank epic for the free games I play on my steam deck, used to have an iPhone but transitioned to a Linux phone fairly early, and not a fan of either company’s current director.
I can’t believe I’m cheering for Sweeney even once, but I guess it works out for all of us in this case.
If you care about freedom, use open source operating systems, and only buy hardware that support it.
Didn’t they literally just lose a court case about this very thing?
I think the case was more about the store front(app store) and the percentage they impose without alternatives.
say their iPhone is preventing them from Installing what they want.
Mind blown that’s what you are paying 1000€ for every few years for you Starbucks capitalist - coffee (a coffee for about 25€ thats just a normal coffee so those Hippies can feel like they are fighting capitalism) drinking dipshit.
How does it take someone so long to realise one of the main points of a product they are buying? Like, its like if I’d use a toilet plunger from public bathrooms as totthbrushes, and just after getting e.coli 10 times I realised that they aren’t there to brush teeth.
You want the 3 f’s? Freedom, Foss and fortnite? Start standing up against such business practices.
While I agree with your point and energy, let’s not give anyone going to Starbucks the moniker of “hippie”. That is a sacred term reserved for the awesomest of people, and doesn’t need to be tarnished by the association with people that have more money than sense.
Wish people cared this much when Epic shutdown the servers for the Unreal Tournament games.
You’re smart enough to know this is nothing like that because you are old enough to have played UT
Doesn’t change that I wish people cared more about when companies shutdown games that they paid for. It cost Epic pennies to keep the master servers running.
That title sounds redundant. “Apple banned fortnite. People are reporting that it’s banned.”
I surmised that people are more than just reporting the ban. They seem to be highlighting the unfair hand of Apple preventing them from doing what they want on their device
They targeted gamers.
Gamers.
We’re a group of people who will sit for hours, days, even weeks on end performing some of the hardest, most mentally demanding tasks. Over, and over, and over all for nothing more than a little digital token saying we did.
We’ll punish our selfs doing things others would consider torture, because we think it’s fun.
We’ll spend most if not all of our free time min maxing the stats of a fictional character all to draw out a single extra point of damage per second.
Many of us have made careers out of doing just these things: slogging through the grind, all day, the same quests over and over, hundreds of times to the point where we know evety little detail such that some have attained such gamer nirvana that they can literally play these games blindfolded.
Do these people have any idea how many controllers have been smashed, systems over heated, disks and carts destroyed 8n frustration? All to latter be referred to as bragging rights?
These people honestly think this is a battle they can win? They take our media? We’re already building a new one without them. They take our devs? Gamers aren’t shy about throwing their money else where, or even making the games our selves. They think calling us racist, mysoginistic, rape apologists is going to change us? We’ve been called worse things by prepubescent 10 year olds with a shitty head set. They picked a fight against a group that’s already grown desensitized to their strategies and methods. Who enjoy the battle of attrition they’ve threatened us with. Who take it as a challange when they tell us we no longer matter. Our obsession with proving we can after being told we can’t is so deeply ingrained from years of dealing with big brothers/sisters and friends laughing at how pathetic we used to be that proving you people wrong has become a very real need; a honed reflex.
Gamers are competative, hard core, by nature. We love a challange. The worst thing you did in all of this was to challange us. You’re not special, you’re not original, you’re not the first; this is just another boss fight.
GAmErS rIsE Up!
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If you don’t want to be called racist misogynist rape apologists don’t be racist, misogynist, or apologize for rape. Pretty simple. Gamers are not actually an oppressed identity my guy. Nobody is out to get you.
I don’t know whether you’ve been alive during the “games make people violent” craze, where the establishment was trying to pin school shootings on a harmless hobby: The same establishment which caused the systemic issues driving youth into desperation was now blaming an escapist hobby for the issues they, themselves, caused. It’s like framing jugglers for knife attacks. Do some jugglers juggle knives? Yes. Does that have anything to do with anything? No.
Is that in any way comparable in scale and intensity to what various groups had to go through historically, or are now, no of course not. But gamers, as a wider culture, know what it’s like to be victim-blamed. The average person who picks up playing games as a hobby is not any more racist, misogynist, or drivelling rape apologia than the population average. They do it because they enjoy it, no further qualifications necessary.
But OTOH, nope. The copypasta is pumped-up to 11 when it comes to the capacity of gamers to be a community, to organise, take joint action, be a force, everything. I’d be easy to go “no true gamer” on some people but face it “gamers” as a group are still pre-ordering games and letting GPU scalpers have their way with us. Just as powerless as, say, football fans are powerless in he face of FIFA corruption. Concert goes in the face of ticket platform monopolies. We’re a hopeless case in any other aspect but whinging: That, we are masters of.
Gonna disagree there, gamers can’t give up pre-ordering games through studios that regularly bait and switch and throwing money at the biggest AAA studios.
We live in a society
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Good. Play better games. Like Elden Ring.
It’s not good. In my understanding Fortnite didn’t break any rules of appstore, so it was banned because of bias. Someone didn’t like it so it got banned, which shouldn’t happen in global market.
you’re not even my real dad
Didn’t they just have a court thing saying its illegal for apple to do so?
this might be enough for people to switch phones to android, you dont mess with peoples addiction to games.
They’ll be right back unless they’re downright chemically addicted. Android is a shovelware trash operating system.
Like for expample the Bluetooth quick tile sorting by most recently paired Instead of most recently connected (and no its not rearrangeable without re-pairing devices)
That’s the most specific and irrelevant example I’ve ever heard in my life lol
“This car is unusable and nobody will ever like it! Did you know that under the trunk, if you look at it with a UV light, the paint pattern is using a slightly different hue than the rest of the body?”
Fair
Deleted by user
That is absolutely not what I said.
It wasn’t, but it also was 🫂
What
It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. Forget I said anything.
:(
All the best.
I get not liking android but your best example being that you can’t sort Bluetooth devices is just ???
That’s not my best example. It’s a randomly chosen one. Why did you assume it was my best example.
Because it’s the only one you gave lol
“For example”
Usually you would want to provide a good example.
Wow, what a short-sighted view. Android, despite its many shortcomings, gives you orders of magnitude more freedom in almost every way imaginable. And none of its shortcomings are blocking you from using it, rather more or less annoy you.
Is there any decent way on a normal android device to rsync sending data to the Android device from another system?
I’ve never tried it, but there appear to be some rsync apps on f-droid, you could try.
Its not short sighted its from several years of experience.
iOS is also trash shovelware but in a way that’s more usable/less haggle for most people.
Yeah, bro has no idea what he is taking about.
How so
How would you know that iOS is trash if it’s vaporware?
Fixed sorry
nobody is forcing you to use the far superior operating system. it’s funny because I’m pretty sure most Android developers use Macs, as do many developers, but everyone who likes to use FOSS and have control of their device uses an AOSP based OS on their device.
I’m using graphene
And the fact that mobile apps pretty much only means iOS and Android forces me to do so.
Honestly Fortnite mobile wasn’t very enjoyable to begin with
Keep it up Apple, keep pissing off the gamers. Shrink that monopoly. Seems pretty fucking insane that they can stop an app from working remotely. If an app that is being used to coordinate a rebellion takes off the US government can order Apple to disable its use. I hope the degoogling Android trend takes off further.
If you’re trying to organise a rebellion via any privately owned company, you’re a fucking idiot.
Yeah keep pissing off gamers. The pro consumer group that got lootboxes, battlepasses, denuvo, endless copy pastes and lazy remakes, nintendo and sony practises, shameless pay to win, day 1 on disk dlc, anti cheat that just blocks only linux users, not cheaters, kernel level anti cheat, ea and ubisoft clients on steam games and pay to win mechanics on already full priced games popular and successful.
Apple is NOT ready for the way gamers are going to make this practise normalized and profitable.
As a gamer I have very low respect for other gamers ability to organise any levels of resistance to shifty business practices.
How they actually spend their money never lies. They moan, but they still pre-order shit like gibbering apes.
Doubt I have paid full price for a AAA game in like a decade at this point. Not even many that I bought. Does shadow of mordor count? I got that at a massive discount ages after release. It was ok, but I would want my money back if I had paid full price.
If an app that is being used to coordinate a rebellion takes off the US government can order Apple to disable its use. I hope the degoogling Android trend takes off further.
Apple already did this in Hong Kong to appease China. They took down apps that were used by protesters to coordinate, they even modified AirDrop so it couldn’t be easily used for ad hoc communication.
Imagine if now, at the height of their success, Apple finally decided, for the first time, to alienate the core audience they’ve always shown undying dedication to: gamers /s
It’s actually Epic’s fault this time. They pulled it from the EU app store.
Finding it hard to sympathise with either of these dickhead corporations. Let 'em sue each other into bankruptcy for all I care.
They pulled all iOS versions because their iOS update couldn’t be approved in time (they’re live service and need simultaneous updates on all platforms) and “Apple has blocked our Fortnite submission so we cannot release to the US App Store or to the Epic Games Store for iOS in the European Union.”
Plus nobody playing Fortnite on an iPhone anyway
Yes they are.
The article literally says they aren’t
At this very moment? No. In general? Yes.
At this very moment, no.
iPad
They targeted gamers.
Gamers.
We’re a group of people who will sit for hours, days, even weeks on end performing some of the hardest, most mentally demanding tasks. Over, and over, and over all for nothing more than a little digital token saying we did.
We’ll punish our selfs doing things others would consider torture, because we think it’s fun.
We’ll spend most if not all of our free time min maxing the stats of a fictional character all to draw out a single extra point of damage per second.
Many of us have made careers out of doing just these things: slogging through the grind, all day, the same quests over and over, hundreds of times to the point where we know evety little detail such that some have attained such gamer nirvana that they can literally play these games blindfolded.
Do these people have any idea how many controllers have been smashed, systems over heated, disks and carts destroyed 8n frustration? All to latter be referred to as bragging rights?
These people honestly think this is a battle they can win? They take our media? We’re already building a new one without them. They take our devs? Gamers aren’t shy about throwing their money else where, or even making the games our selves. They think calling us racist, mysoginistic, rape apologists is going to change us? We’ve been called worse things by prepubescent 10 year olds with a shitty head set. They picked a fight against a group that’s already grown desensitized to their strategies and methods. Who enjoy the battle of attrition they’ve threatened us with. Who take it as a challange when they tell us we no longer matter. Our obsession with proving we can after being told we can’t is so deeply ingrained from years of dealing with big brothers/sisters and friends laughing at how pathetic we used to be that proving you people wrong has become a very real need; a honed reflex.
Gamers are competative, hard core, by nature. We love a challange. The worst thing you did in all of this was to challange us. You’re not special, you’re not original, you’re not the first; this is just another boss fight.
I have a very particular set of skills…
There’s also Linux phones
People buying Apple products want to be told by Apple what’s allowed. The walled garden is core to Apple’s product philosophy. It’s not like everybody was expecting Apple to be super open and inclusive with anything and then be taken by surprise from the Fortnite situation. Even before they deprecated open standards because their own tech is supposedly evolving faster and are better integrated.
People wanting to play Fortnite on phones can just get a reasonably specced Android phone and install EGS next to Play Store with just a few taps.
Eh, not really. I buy Apple because I’ve had 3 Android phones crap out on me literally days after their warranty died. I got tired of that shit, I paid a bit more and got myself an iPhone 13. It still works as good as it did on the first day. While I do know that Apple devices have a set death day (when they stop getting security updates), I believe I generate far less e-waste by buying 1 iPhone every 7 or 8 years instead of buying a brand new Android every year.
As far as Fortnite goes, I don’t care for the game itself, but I am happy that they fought Apple in court and gave developers the freedom to implement third party IAP, albeit I have no use for it as I only use my phone for phone calls and messaging and the occasional web browsing.
I only use my phone for phone calls and messaging and the occasional web browsing.
Why not use a feature phone, then? Cheaper, more repairable, and the Nokia ones will also last longer.
Android is an operating system. It has nothing to do with crappy hardware. At least they’re somewhat repairable when they do break.
I think iPhones have one of the best iFixit repairability scores among popular smartphones. The current iPhone 16 Pro scores 7/10, while the Pixel 9 Pro and S25 Ultra only achieve 5/10. Parts - first or third party - are broadly available.
Those scores are simply nonsense and do not account for the parts pairing bullshit. They gave them 7s a couple years ago, then dropped to 4 after public outcry, then just went back to 7s again with no explanation.
Other manufacturers did/do parts pairing as well.
Apple also removed a couple of roadblocks for third party parts and you can pair replacement parts on device now.
Is it perfect? No. My point is simply that most other major smartphone manufacturers are no better (remember Google’s Pixel 4a battery performance program?). But around these parts people seem to be prejudiced and maybe have outdated information. I just feel like it’s more of a “pick your poison” instead of a “grass is greener on the other side”.
Well then I stand both shocked and delightfully corrected, thank you.
buying a brand new android every year
We’ve had wildly different experiences with these companies, for what it’s worth.
I bought an iPhone X back when they were new, and had to get it replaced twice within the first 6 months because of hardware failures.
Conversely, I kept my Pixel 3 (from 2019) until last year.
I had a MacBook, while I was typing on it, suddenly just turn off, never to be turned on again. Took it to the store, they told me it was cheaper to buy a new one.
I had a similar experience and this is what made me switch away from Apple computers.
Which Android phones did you have?
Predicting a classic tale of comparing apple flagships to $150 android phones.
S21, S22 and a Pixel 5 or 6. The latter was the one to break the camel’s break.
The DMA should never have allowed Apple any oversight of apps distributed outside their store.
I don’t think this is distributed outside their store, flashlight man.
Epic was planning to distribute it in its own store in the EU.
flashlight man.
I’ll take it.
Epic isn’t wrong about Apples payment requirements being BS, but Epic also isn’t exactly a hero here.
Will be interesting to see how this pissing match plays out over time.
Should you be able to use other payment providers outside of apple pay YES!
Should you be able to install other APP stores on an iPhone? Not sure.
Why shouldn’t you be able to install whatever you want? Maybe I’m missing something…
You are missing the gene that makes one an apple fanBoi apparently.
I am in the camp that there is a benefit to the managed store. Since moving family members to iOS devices the number of times they have loaded malware or asked me for help installing ANYTHING dropped to zero.
Should techies be able to side load if they want? Sure, should that be a primary install method? No.
All bootloaders should be able to be unlocked and able to install the OS of your choice. Also you should be able to choose whatever app store you want. It is your hardware, you payed for it.
If you want a customizable phone, yes. If you want a secured phone, no.
There are already existing products for both sides. No point in forcing them to do something else at this point.
Except Google is trying to limit this on Android phones as well (e.g. with SafetyNet).
If manufacturers had their way, there wouldn’t be any phones for one side.
If manufacturers had their way, there wouldn’t be any phones for one side.
There’s nothing stopping manufacturers from permanently locking the bootloader. Some do and others don’t suggesting that the industry does not have a universal preference.
I do think Google wants it to be inconvenient enough to run a version of Android they haven’t blessed as one’s main phone that it has no chance to become mainstream, but that’s about the prospect of an OEM not bundling Google’s apps and store, not hobbyists running custom builds. If that sounds like an attempt to use market power to exclude competitors in violation of fair trading laws in a multitude of jurisdictions, you might be on to something.
There’s nothing stopping manufacturers from permanently locking the bootloader. Some do and others don’t suggesting that the industry does not have a universal preference.
Some manufacturers have stopped allowing unlocking their bootloaders, some bootloaders have been hacked by the community. It’s not like this is a static system.
I do think Google wants it to be inconvenient enough to run a version of Android they haven’t blessed as one’s main phone that it has no chance to become mainstream, but that’s about the prospect of an OEM not bundling Google’s apps and store, not hobbyists running custom builds.
No, Google is also trying to stop hobbyists running custom builds from accessing services built on their software (the aforementioned SafetyNet). Hackers keep finding ways around this, but Google keeps trying to lock them out.
I mean that’s something that’d happen regardless of whether you may install other App Stores on an iPhone easily, no?
GP wrote:
All bootloaders should be able to be unlocked and able to install the OS of your choice. Also you should be able to choose whatever app store you want. It is your hardware, you payed for it.
App stores are just one part of the puzzle. Unless consumers actually have rights, manufacturers will keep trying to limit their options.
Apple’s software is malware
How so?
Nope. No reason that you should pay $1000 for a device and not, at the very least, be able to install compatible software from other sources.
We wouldn’t accept this from Microsoft. Could you imagine if this was the norm for DOS or Windows?
Should side loading be discouraged and warned about? Yes. Should it be impossible? Maybe through “parental” controls or MDM, but absolutely not out-of-the-box.
What’s more, Windows S Mode proved perfectly that you could offer the “safe” functionality that Apple claim they need to protect their customers, without fucking things up for people who wanted to take responsibility for vetting applications themselves.
This is a sane take, though I personally do generally tend towards understanding and even valuing the walled garden to some degree. But this is what I’ve always felt underneath it, you found the words.
A walled garden without an exit is just a pretty prison.
“I frequently interface with idiots, so I don’t feel it would be safe for you to have full control over the hardware you own.”
There is a benefit. And you can continue using the first-party store if you want. There’s no benefit to not being able to use 3rd-party ones to anyone but Apple and their investors.
Monopolies and trusts are never beneficial to anyone save those who control them.
I can see benefits of such limitations for say a company-owned devices with cyber-security in mind. When we talk about open market of devices in an increasingly “digital” world I am against limitations with profit in mind. It’s like many things in life. When you want to do or use something you have to learn to use it, often by getting burned or otherwise making a mistake. You having to fix family devices has nothing to do with it. Anyway I have no stake in this, I would never buy an Apple device. Companies pushing for “infinite growth” with such policies will be left in the dust imo, but the billionares will just move on after milking everything dry.
