Apple Plays Checkers While Epic Plays Fortnite

An Epic trolling of Apple could lead to real change...

Aug 15, 2020

It sure feels like we’re in the endgame now. While the days leading up to WWDC were tense, given the Hey situation in particular, yesterday’s maneuver by Epic to goad Apple into banning Fortnite was, well, epic. The immediate lawsuit complete with its own subversive sizzle reel mocking Apple’s famous ‘1984’ ad was well, Jobsian. Showmanship at its finest.

To put it another way: Epic out-Apple’d Apple.

And seemingly caught them flat-footed. Because of course the in-app payment circumvention was simply meant to bring about a ban of one of the most popular games not only in the App Store, but of all time, anywhere. Apple walked right into it and then after the press ate it up, released a statement that came across as flat at best.

Epic has the upper-hand here. And they know that. Which is why they can take on a $2T company with such irreverence. They also have allies in the shape of other entities with varying degrees of leverage — Netflix, Spotify, etc. Even Facebook. Apple has an ally of their own, but it’s a strange bedfellow, to say the least: Google. The company that runs the other app store, of course.

So how does this all play out? Impossible to say right now! My feeling is that it’s advantage League of Extraordinary Apps. And because they’re at least saying the right things in terms of also trying to do this for the little guys, this could have major ramifications. And because the tech behemoths are under government scrutiny, both at home and abroad, this could have really major ramifications.

If I had to guess, I think we’ll see Apple come back quickly with an attempt at a temporary “fix”. Certainly, generic statements aside, Apple would be willing to cut a backroom deal with Epic, as they’ve done with other big developers, to ensure Fortnite remains on iOS devices. But if you believe Epic, that won’t be good enough. And so what we may see is an indication of a “new deal” from Apple, as it were. A promise of a full revisiting of the App Store rules and policies from the ground up. But it will take some time, of course. So in the meantime, let the games begin again?

Maybe that works. Maybe not. Regardless, I suspect any “new deal” wouldn’t necessarily mean a “better deal” for all developers. I think it would just signal Apple’s intent to get a lot more granular with regard to App Store rules and percentage cuts. An acknowledgment that times have changed from when many of the current “strict” (by which I mean, broken routinely and arbitrarily) rules were put in place. Because 2020 is not 2010.

Perhaps more likely is a promise of more transparency in how this all works, and the decision-making process. That would be a good thing, but would it be enough?

To me, this has never primarily been about the 30% cut. That’s part of it, sure. But it’s more about arbitrary rules put in place in a very different world with regard to the mobile landscape. The App Store was never meant to be about Apple making money, if no less than Steve Jobs was to be believed at the time. And yet, it’s now arguably Apple’s second most-important business, after the iPhone.

And so that’s going to make it very hard to put this genie back into the bottle, even if Apple recognizes it’s the “right” thing to do. How will shareholders feel about Apple potentially giving up billions of dollars in revenues? The answer should be that they should feel good about it, because it will ensure that Apple remains both dominant and beloved in the mobile ecosystem. It’s a short-term hit for a long-term payout.

That’s what was so disappointing about Apple’s (I’m sorry, a third-party’s) survey about the state of marketplaces and cuts. Apple is playing the “we’re no different than anyone else” card, when they should be playing the “think different” card. They should be leading by example here and getting ahead of developer strife by doing the “right thing” for their partners. And that’s in quotes because, again, it’s not actually just the right thing for their partners, it’s actually the right thing for themselves too. Because without the changes, one day, there will be no more partners.

Links

Amazon is said to be looking at buying up old department stores to use as fulfillment centers. Something, something, dance on graves. 🛍
A journalist’s first-person account of what it was like to be in Beirut when the explosion happened is well worth the read. “When the world stopped cracking open, I couldn’t see at first because of the blood running down my face…” 😳
William Shakespeare lived in a world of habitual pandemic, but only wrote about it tangentially as it was so the norm. 🎭
Discovery is inching closer to their own bundle of programming, which actually makes sense given their strength in genres like travel and cooking. Bundles of bundles, all the way down… 👩‍🍳
Sumner Redstone, who just passed away at age 97, had quite the life. One thing I did not know: he was an assistant to the attorney general during U.S. vs. Paramount, the antitrust case which broke up the Hollywood studio system. And then he would go on to buy Paramount years later, of course. Synergies. 🎬
Hans Zimmer created a new, longer Netflix title card sound for their theatrical releases. As you might expect, it’s good. 🎞
A bunch of famous people are getting together to do a Fast Times at Ridgemont High table read for charity. They include Sean Penn, who will not be reading the part of Jeff Spicoli. The easy money is on Mr. Hand. Well worth our time. 🏄‍♂️
So the Alexa-enabled glasses don’t sound great — as you might expect. And as even Amazon might expect. They’re just putting things out there to see if something works. Of course, when those things recommend Long John Silver’s as the go-to taco shop in San Francisco, it may be time to re-think the things. 🌮
Good interview with new WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar. I’ve been on record as being very, very skeptical of AT&T/Warner’s strategy with HBO Go/Now/Max, but it feels like Kilar is ready and able to right the ship. 📺
In App Store news related to the issues up top, Facebook tried and failed at least five times to get their Facebook Gaming app approved. They finally made is through when they took the games out. Sounds like just a great developer and customer experience. “Apple ghosted us.” 👻
Obviously completely unrelated to all of this, Phil Schiller is totally not retiring. He’s graduating to the role of “Apple Fellow”, which sounds like it’s straight out of the worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien. But he’s staying in control of the App Store — we’ll see how long that lasts. Still, one hell of a run. 🍎
A deep dive into the UX of LEGO Interface Panels? Yes please. 🧱