Day 3 of the Apple vs Epic trial: What actually is an iPhone anyway?
(2021/05/06)
- Reference: 1620311406
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/05/06/apple_vs_epic/
- Source link:
The [1]legal spat between Epic Games and Apple entered somewhat philosophical territory on Wednesday as the battling sides debated over whether the iPhone legitimately constitutes a general-purpose computing device, or is merely a locked-down platform with a specific purpose, such as a games console.
Epic Games, which has alleged Apple's tight control on the way iOS software is distributed and monetised is [2]tantamount to an antitrust abuse , called up Lori Wright, Microsoft's head of Xbox business development, as a witness.
During her testimony (audio-only link to the hearing [3]here ), Wright divided devices into two categories. Special-purpose devices like the Xbox, she said, are purchased by consumers because they perform a specific function. While the Xbox can be used to stream content on Spotify or Netflix, its raison d'etre is playing games.
[4]
[5]
[6]
By contrast, general-purpose devices (a category she described as including Windows PCs and iPhones) are less defined. If you want to do a certain thing, you can – provided the software exists. Moreover, general platforms typically (but not always) afford developers a greater degree of freedom when it comes to the types of software they can build, and how they distribute it.
[7]The Fat iPhone, 11 years on: The iPad's over a decade old and we're still not sure what it's for
[8]Shift-work: Keyboards heaped in a field push North Yorks council's fly-tipping buttons
[9]Congressional group asks FBI boss Wray to explain Apple lawsuit
[10]Apple 'iPhone' coming tomorrow/delayed to 2007*
The Microsoft exec also pointed out that special-purpose devices often have a different business model. Whereas Apple earns a crust from the sales of devices, with App Store revenue ancillary, games consoles are effectively loss leaders, sold for less than the manufacturing cost in the hope the vendor will recoup the difference through software and content sales.
The distinction, based on Wright's testimony, is that nobody would purchase the Xbox with plans to use it like an open-ended platform. By contrast, there's an entirely different expectation when it comes to iOS.
That expectation isn't always realised, with Wright citing Apple's refusal to approve Microsoft's fledgling games streaming service xCloud for the iOS platform without first meeting a set of onerous requirements.
Bringing xCloud to the iPhone (the service launched in preview mode on Android last September) would have required Microsoft to break out each title into its own individual app – which would have proven unworkable, and meant that each game would be subject to the App Store's restrictions on violence and nudity.
[11]
The service would have also been subject to Apple's policies on in-app payments, with Cupertino swallowing almost a third of all revenue generated directly on the iPhone and iPad.
Wright's testimony contradicted Apple's argument that its policies governing the App Store were no different to those on competing platforms, like the Xbox.
Wright said of the Store: "You access the Xbox store as part of the integrated experience." She added that the Xbox doesn't compete for transactions with the Apple store.
[12]
There are parallels, though. Microsoft also skims 30 per cent from all game sales and in-app downloads. This has proven lucrative, and Wright said the company makes between $600m and $700m from Epic Games alone.
Microsoft also exerts a huge deal of control over what ultimately gets published. Redmond has a [13]long-standing ban on emulators on the Xbox store, for example, and enforces this rule as best as it can, playing a long-running game of whack-a-mole with developers that try to slip through the cracks.
Despite that, there are disparities in how they work, and what they ultimately do. At the end of the day, an Xbox is not an iPhone.
Whether that's enough to convince US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers remains to be seen. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/04/apple_vs_epic_trial/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/29/apple_epic_july_trial/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU-PiSmHWkU
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YJQSmXHLGldrpxA-mkVvcgAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YJQSmXHLGldrpxA-mkVvcgAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YJQSmXHLGldrpxA-mkVvcgAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] http://www.theregister.com/2021/01/29/ipad_11_years_old/
[8] http://www.theregister.com/2018/10/31/stack_of_keyboards_flytipped_in_yorkshire_field/
[9] http://www.theregister.com/2018/04/16/congressional_group_asks_fbi_boss_wray_to_explain_apple_lawsuit/
[10] http://www.theregister.com/2006/03/31/apple_iphone_speculation/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YJQSmXHLGldrpxA-mkVvcgAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YJQSmXHLGldrpxA-mkVvcgAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/11/how-one-developer-is-sneaking-emulators-through-a-hole-in-the-xbox-store/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Epic Games, which has alleged Apple's tight control on the way iOS software is distributed and monetised is [2]tantamount to an antitrust abuse , called up Lori Wright, Microsoft's head of Xbox business development, as a witness.
During her testimony (audio-only link to the hearing [3]here ), Wright divided devices into two categories. Special-purpose devices like the Xbox, she said, are purchased by consumers because they perform a specific function. While the Xbox can be used to stream content on Spotify or Netflix, its raison d'etre is playing games.
[4]
[5]
[6]
By contrast, general-purpose devices (a category she described as including Windows PCs and iPhones) are less defined. If you want to do a certain thing, you can – provided the software exists. Moreover, general platforms typically (but not always) afford developers a greater degree of freedom when it comes to the types of software they can build, and how they distribute it.
[7]The Fat iPhone, 11 years on: The iPad's over a decade old and we're still not sure what it's for
[8]Shift-work: Keyboards heaped in a field push North Yorks council's fly-tipping buttons
[9]Congressional group asks FBI boss Wray to explain Apple lawsuit
[10]Apple 'iPhone' coming tomorrow/delayed to 2007*
The Microsoft exec also pointed out that special-purpose devices often have a different business model. Whereas Apple earns a crust from the sales of devices, with App Store revenue ancillary, games consoles are effectively loss leaders, sold for less than the manufacturing cost in the hope the vendor will recoup the difference through software and content sales.
The distinction, based on Wright's testimony, is that nobody would purchase the Xbox with plans to use it like an open-ended platform. By contrast, there's an entirely different expectation when it comes to iOS.
That expectation isn't always realised, with Wright citing Apple's refusal to approve Microsoft's fledgling games streaming service xCloud for the iOS platform without first meeting a set of onerous requirements.
Bringing xCloud to the iPhone (the service launched in preview mode on Android last September) would have required Microsoft to break out each title into its own individual app – which would have proven unworkable, and meant that each game would be subject to the App Store's restrictions on violence and nudity.
[11]
The service would have also been subject to Apple's policies on in-app payments, with Cupertino swallowing almost a third of all revenue generated directly on the iPhone and iPad.
Wright's testimony contradicted Apple's argument that its policies governing the App Store were no different to those on competing platforms, like the Xbox.
Wright said of the Store: "You access the Xbox store as part of the integrated experience." She added that the Xbox doesn't compete for transactions with the Apple store.
[12]
There are parallels, though. Microsoft also skims 30 per cent from all game sales and in-app downloads. This has proven lucrative, and Wright said the company makes between $600m and $700m from Epic Games alone.
Microsoft also exerts a huge deal of control over what ultimately gets published. Redmond has a [13]long-standing ban on emulators on the Xbox store, for example, and enforces this rule as best as it can, playing a long-running game of whack-a-mole with developers that try to slip through the cracks.
Despite that, there are disparities in how they work, and what they ultimately do. At the end of the day, an Xbox is not an iPhone.
Whether that's enough to convince US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers remains to be seen. ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/04/apple_vs_epic_trial/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/29/apple_epic_july_trial/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU-PiSmHWkU
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YJQSmXHLGldrpxA-mkVvcgAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YJQSmXHLGldrpxA-mkVvcgAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YJQSmXHLGldrpxA-mkVvcgAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] http://www.theregister.com/2021/01/29/ipad_11_years_old/
[8] http://www.theregister.com/2018/10/31/stack_of_keyboards_flytipped_in_yorkshire_field/
[9] http://www.theregister.com/2018/04/16/congressional_group_asks_fbi_boss_wray_to_explain_apple_lawsuit/
[10] http://www.theregister.com/2006/03/31/apple_iphone_speculation/
[11] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YJQSmXHLGldrpxA-mkVvcgAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YJQSmXHLGldrpxA-mkVvcgAAAMg&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/11/how-one-developer-is-sneaking-emulators-through-a-hole-in-the-xbox-store/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
RE: BS, BS everywhere
Antonius_Prime
"Although I concede that running a text editor on a jailbroken smart toilet is not the most practical thing…"
Yes, but until someone ports DOOM to the Port-a-potty, is it really even a platform at that point? :D
(Can we get a DOOM Guy icon?)
This is supposed to go on for another three weeks, right?
ThomH
Apple's iPad marketing slogan seems to get to the nub of this argument: "Your next computer is not a computer." So it's not a computer. But also it is. Problem solved.
Snark aside, I don't own an iPad other than a superannuated iPad 2 that acts as my iTunes/etc to Bluetooth bridge for the living room precisely because it can't do a whole bunch of general computing tasks. For me it's the uselessness for software development. But they run Photoshop and Office and probably 95% of the rest of what anybody else wants from a computer and in that regard are very different from consoles.
I could see more of an argument if this were just about iPhones but Apple's choice to try to turn the iPad into a professional work tool may have tipped the scales.
The real reason isn't Epic V Apple...
Antonius_Prime
The reason they took on Apple isn't to tackle the App Store's policy.
It's because it's the smallest market share for Fortnite. If they can crack that, and / or set precedent, they can prise the same 30% off of MS grasp and whatever Sony charges.
(Survey is way out of date, but gives a general idea,,,)
https://www.statista.com/statistics/882135/leading-devices-used-play-fortnite/
BS, BS everywhere
“ nobody would purchase the Xbox with plans to use it like an open-ended platform.”
That’s sounds like a challenge… should I accept it? Or just search the internetZ for someone who already did it? Or both?
The difference between “locked down”, special purpose computers and general purpose ones is essentially the number of bugs you need to exploit to make them do what you want.
Although I concede that running a text editor on a jailbroken smart toilet is not the most practical thing…