Epic and Apple both moan Supreme Court inaction

The supreme court declined to hear the Epic vs Apple lawsuit.

Apple will have to allow third party payment options and will have to allow developers who choose to inform users about this in their apps.

Today's denial of petitions for certiorari means that Apple has mostly run out of legal options to prevent changes to its App Store policies now that multiple courts have found its "anti-steering" language anticompetitive.

However, Epic won't be allowed to put their own app store on iOS devices.

Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, wrote that the Supreme Court's denial means the "battle to open iOS to competing stores and payments is lost in the United States" and that it was a "sad outcome for all developers."

He seems to be lying about the payments thing though based on the above.

Microsoft continues to promise not to take these actions on their own platforms, and their policy seems to align with the Open App Markets Act so it will be interesting to see what new stores and payment options come to Xbox.

"Just as Windows has evolved to an open and broadly used platform, we see the future of gaming following a similar path."

There are already multiple app stores on Android and PC. How do you feel about multiple app stores coming to consoles and iOS? Do you foresee the siloing of content, where you must visit a particular publisher's app store on the platform with its own agreements, conditions, refund policies, bundling policies, ownership policies, etc? Or do you foresee this turning into different outlets where people can offer the same games with competing prices, like Green Man Gaming and all that? Or will it be a mixture of both?

How do you feel this will affect the simplicity and straightforwardness of the experience of these devices? Will it improve the situation or turn people off?

Tell us about your near future and far future predictions.

Apple is for hipsters who enjoy being ripped off.

Scum. All of them.

Oh, those poor, poor, multi-billion dollar companies. Whatever will they do!?

...Besides keep earning billions, I mean. Which they will continue to do.

Yep!

I keep trying to tell my sister this. Don't get Apple products. But she insists. Even though like 90% of businesses and schools use Windows.

A reminder: Timmy Boy brought this tech bro slap-fight into this world to stroke his Messiah Complex and promote his failing Steam competitor.

I have zero opinions on this other than I want it to go away.

@girlusocrazy: I never understood the courts...how can they threaten to break up Microsoft in the 90s for monopolizing their windows platform, yet in 2024 apple who takes 70% of all mobile profits and is for all intents and purposes a real monopoly can restrict 3rd party app stores on their mobile OS.

What the heck is going on with this difference in treatment.

@blaznwiipspman1: Is it different? They didn't end up breaking up Microsoft. Right now there are multiple choices of phones on the market. The competition is not stifled, there are many vendors, and there is not much app exclusivity or service exclusivity.

Contrast that to in the 90s (and 2000s) when it seemed like when OEMs wanted to sell PCs without paying for a Windows license for that unit, Microsoft would suspect the OEMs of trying to sell counterfeit software. Vendors who couldn't fight back in court (such as shops that bought hardware and built PCs themselves, there weren't too many massive companies like Gateway and IBM but many were smaller shops) would be intimidated by Microsoft's "License compliance team". It seemed like even the larger outfits like Dell, HP, and Lenovo would not provide what Microsoft would call "naked PCs."

"Microsoft wants to know if you're not using its operating systems, and if you aren't, is willing to pay your system vendor "valuable" prizes for turning you in.

In the new program, outlined in a memo issued by Microsoft's Western Region OEM group, Microsoft trumpets: "You may be eligible to win prizes! Here's how... By submitting bids that request PC systems without an Operating System due to a Microsoft site license, you can earn points and win! ... If you are the first to identify the bid you will be awarded one point for each PC specified on the bid."

And what can a vendor win? For 250 "naked" PCs, you'll get five Microsoft game titles; for finking out to the tune of 500 PCs, you'll get the games plus a Fossil Big Tic watch; and for 1,000 ratted-out PCs, you'll get all of the above, "plus a Fast Cook & Grill Combo and Travel Chair."

Worried that your customers might take offense? Don't be, Microsoft reassures you. While you may have compromised your customer's privacy, your privacy will still be protected: "Microsoft will not disclose your Company's identity as the source of the bid information,"

When projects like One Laptop Per Child wanted to make a laptop for $100 (when pretty much all laptops were over $1000), Microsoft had dropped their license fee for these devices to $3.

"This is not a philanthropic effort, this is a business," Orlando Ayala of Microsoft told the Reuter's news agency.

I'm sure both companies did anticompetitive things, I'm not sure how any of this compares to what Apple did.

Microsoft had some sort of settlement that basically allowed oversight of the company, and perhaps this helped stop the more egregious practices, but they were still able to bundle their browser, they are bundling Teams with Office, they bundle their store with Windows, they bundled Cortana and now Copilot, they have their own ads in Windows and have recommended software install shortcuts, they still have low cost licensing and also free upgrades to the OS to try to hold on to customers. It seems like they are still able to do what they want, apart from trying to shake down OEMs.

I'm not sure what concessions MS really had to make. They were able to settle for a fine but continue their business pretty much as usual. On the other hand it seems like Apple will have to make concessions that they didn't want to and otherwise would not have made.

Anyway my interest is not really in what happens to corporations, but what happens on the consumer side and what the consumer experience will be like, and whether in the end it will be better or worse. I don't know honestly and I'm interested in what people foresee here. Will it be a good consumer experience?

IDK, I am mostly interested in how the experience for consumers will end up. Maybe it will be cheaper purchases, or maybe they will just still be the same price but with insecure payment options or scam sites that claim you can make your purchase on there for cheaper.

The interesting part too is MS supporting other stores on Xbox, and I wonder if publishers will stop selling things on the official store and if the publishers' stores will be as fair as the Xbox Store, with terms and refunds and perpetual ability to download, will these alternate stores end up shutting down and cutting you off with no recourse if they fail? Will it end up better or worse?

Or because of this decision, will MS reconsider? I think it was @Antwan3K who said that MS would rather push people to its own store so I'm not sure how that is reconciled with the idea of MS having competing stores and payment methods on Xbox.

I don't use Epic or Apple, to me it just feels like 2 big corps having a pillow fight.

Whoever wins, we lose

I like it when two assholes fight.

Most of the world but especially US and UK, US more so since the 80s has been gradually moving towards more and more the dystopian future where corporations just control the worlds with no oversight. I kept saying the ancti-competitive laws needs to be updated to reflect the modern world ruled by tech. Laws written over a century ago are not relevant.

MS, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google all had monopolies in their respective fields with token competition just for show.

To be fair, this is more of a "Br'er Rabbit" type of loss for Apple: While it will have to allow redirects to other payment options, they still get their 30 percent.

This is a pretty big blow to the folks wanting all content everywhere.

Interesting, you're right about that.

Apple is still taking its 27 percent cut, even if users buy digital goods and services from a website linked from within an app.

It seems unfortunate for developers, but consumers still have other choices of what type of mobile phone to buy. Maybe if apps and transactions become cheaper on Android phones, then that will threaten Apple's pricing, but their customers seem to not care about overpriced things.

I guess the most significant thing Apple will face will be the sideloading of apps in the EU. I wonder how people will be able to unlock this internationally. They'll probably be forced to import phones, and Apple will try to prevent them from being serviced locally?

This is going to sound weird, but I'm going to counter-argument myself: While Apple is saying it'll take its cut, others -- notably Epic -- have said that doing so will cause more legal fighting. So, there's a chance that Apple actually won't get that cut.

(I knew there was a reason I never went into law!)

@zmanbarzel: It will be interesting to see Epic's arguments. Will Epic also allow others to sell content in Fortnite, and use external payment services without taking a cut?

Lol no.

@ghostofgolden: That would probably be my guess.

Anyway in other news Epic announced plans to contest Apple taking a cut from 3rd party transactions.