Epic vs. Apple AU:Court Orders Alt App Stores,Sideloading and 3rd Party Payments

(judgments.fedcourt.gov.au)

58 points | by Mayzie 2 hours ago ago

17 comments

  • isodev 14 minutes ago

    That’s good news for people who enjoy the freedom of using the device they own in the way they want.

    Having (alt store) presence in Australia, Brazil, EU and Japan is in fact more than enough for many indies - one can even begin to imagine ignoring the US as a region.

    • Gigachad a minute ago

      I’ve been thinking about open source replacements of proprietary companion apps. It’s easy enough to reverse engineer Bluetooth protocols now, but you can’t run these in websites. Putting stuff on the App Store is too expensive but sideloading could be viable.

  • mikeyanderson1 an hour ago

    This is a massive win for independent Ai.

    I want to run so my agents have a local sandbox on device.

    • MBCook 12 minutes ago

      Does this grant any of that?

      • Gigachad 5 minutes ago

        Nope. Apple already allows local AI model running in apps on the App Store.

    • EA-3167 an hour ago

      Truly a universal concern for 99.9% of people who buy an iPhone.

      • himata4113 11 minutes ago

        nowhere they've said that this is a win for iPhone users.

  • oliyoung an hour ago

    Huge decision, maybe toughest Apple's seen yet.

    • deepsun 33 minutes ago

      They will appeal.

      • motionlessveloc 9 minutes ago

        The Federal Court is already Australia's second-highest court. The only higher level is the High Court, and like the US Supreme Court, they're quite picky about what appeals they'll accept.

      • troupo 4 minutes ago

        They will, but they've already been through this in the EU. They will take several years to drag this out through courts and "negotiations" until they comply so maliciously you'll need a new term for that.

      • ForOldHack 27 minutes ago

        Where is my pop-corn?

      • ForOldHack 26 minutes ago

        "Apple has lost major, high-profile appeals before the European Union courts in two primary landmark matters, while also winning an earlier round in one of them."

  • MBCook 8 minutes ago

    So now that Tim Cook is gone will we see John Ternus actually apply some braincells to this?

    They’re just going to keep losing. And every time they fight they make it worse. They had a chance to get off way easier years ago. They destroyed it by fighting tooth and nail.

    I don’t want any of those features myself, I don’t think. Small chance at side-loading.

    But everyone, even diehard Apple pundits, realized long ago this was a very stupid hill to die on.

  • dannyw 9 minutes ago

    I feel incredibly proud do to be Australian right now.

    I like how the court’s declarations are punchy, factual, and dare I say obvious. I’d suggest giving section 1 a read.

    There’s going to be a million ā€œwhat ifsā€, from walled gardens to security to ā€˜you don’t have to use iOS’, but it’s blatantly obvious this is all about competition and money.

    It’s anticompetitive, illegal, and the remedy is to cease these anticompetitive actions.

  • troupo 6 minutes ago

    EU got there first, and Apple sabotaged the entire process anyway. Look at the requirements for setting up and running an alt store that Apple imposes.

    • josephg a few seconds ago

      Read the ruling. It's clearly written with Apple's EU schenanagens in mind:

      > 4. Subject to orders 12 and 13, the first respondent must not (including by procuring any act of any related corporation) prohibit, prevent or take any action (including by imposing a fee or condition) which is likely to hinder users of iOS devices from discovering, obtaining and updating iOS apps, including alternative app stores, via Alternative Distribution Channels, or from using iOS apps obtained in that way on iOS devices, or prohibit, prevent or take any action (including by imposing a fee or condition) which is likely to hinder app developers from distributing and updating such iOS apps to such users via Alternative Distribution Channels, including but not limited to: ..

      Then it goes on to list all the ways Apple isn't allowed to quietly break 3rd party app stores - like, they can't make developers or users pay money to use them. They can't restrict which APIs are allowed to be used via 3rd party stores. They can't require that people who publish apps in the official store remove their apps from 3rd party stores. And so on.