https://developer.apple.com/support/core-technology-fee/
This is what some commenters here don't understand when they criticize the developer for not offering a free App Store version in the EU. Once a developer distributes outside the App Store in the EU, Apple applies the CTF to everything the developer distributes in the EU, whether inside or outside the App Store. Financially, there's no way that they could offer a free version in the EU.
Also note: "Developers of alternative app marketplaces will pay the Core Technology Fee for every first annual install of their app marketplace, including installs that occur before one million."
And there is the option of setting up a non-profit which removes the CTF.
It seems much more like the aim is to drive usage towards the AltStore.
Apple has made this situation way more difficult than it needs to be. Don't blame the victims. Also, the EU is already investigating, and it's not clear that Apple's Rube Goldberg machine will ultimately stand up to DMA scrutiny.
Looks like they make it incredibly easy to pay with no pre-verification, so yeah, probably a lot of refunds.
I remember years ago turning off location services on my iphone, and finding my iphone connecting to .ls.apple.com all the time (location services).
I just think people don't want to give up control. They just trick/force/wear down people/customers until they give up their* control.
It's too bad. I remember reading Matt Ridley's "the rational optimist" I think he said that when trading partners have trust, trading is unlimited.
If I was treated with respect by apple, I would have trust and buy all kinds of things from them. Instead, I have to do this careful calculus, with devices, upgrades, apps and usually do not.
Besides Apple already mentioned that it's location based and if you go out of the EU you will only have about month of "trial" to use the apps... Apple can go to hell :D
By the PS2/GameCube/Xbox era most games were fine and PAL60 was becoming a thing anyway, but older than that and there’s a good chance the game just runs 17% slower due to the 50/60Hz difference, or has some weird letterboxing due to not accounting for 576 vs 480 lines.
I still remember the first time I saw an imported Japanese PS1 playing Teken 2, and how much smoother it looked on NTSC. I could never look at my PAL copy the same way again, I couldn't unsee the NTSC version. For me personally, those extra 10 frames trump the extra 100 scanlines in PAL etc.
A lot of PAL ports of games ran slower because they weren't re-timed correctly if at all. On the flipside, being the last major region to get games, there was often additional content by the time they got here. Like the infamous "European extreme" difficulty in MGS3.
Although, I'm sure US commercial TV stations frame drop movies to speed them up so they can insert more commercials these days anyway.
I can't say how it's done today, but at the TV station where I worked in the 1990's, we did. But we never dropped frames of content. That would cause all kinds of copyright and contract problems.
We did, however, drop frames of black and superblack. In an average hour, we were able to get back enough frames to insert an extra 15-second commercial at the top of the hour.
No.. no they are not.
They clearly made a policy change and allowed another emulator on the App Store https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2024/04/apple-removes-the-fir...
(I’m in the UK so can download from the App Store, finally a benefit of you-know-what lol)
This is exactly what I have been worried about and people tried to explain to tell me that, no this doesn't remove choice from me as a user.
When in fact it does, if I was in the EU (and if the US does something similar, likely here) if I wanted to download this I would have to use their store. The choice is being made for me by the developer.
It didn't take long to already have an example of this happening and bigger companies will likely follow suit.
So how exactly does this benefit users again and isn't all about appeasing developers?
Your decision is to pay Apple's fee that they claim is fair, or not use the app. I don't really see how we can shake our fists at the developers and publishers for not sponsoring the distribution of their FOSS app. It's very clearly the Unity-esque installation fee that is the problem here.
You can blame Apple here, by adding a fee per install, if you choose to go outside the appstore, you pretty much have to remove the free appstore option otherwise why would anybody use the other one?
The weird economics Apple has created discourages using both.
Or is Delta being used mainly as the incentive to use AltStore?
- I used Firefox, which can't be used for this. OK, I go to Safari.
- In Safari, I tap the "Download" button and get a message indicating that I can't install because my settings. I only see two options "OK" and "More information", but no details about "which" setting I need to change.
- In the "More information" page, I only read a wall of text that doesn't explain what the fxxx I need to do to in order to perform the install.
- No matter how I try, there's no results in the settings search for "external", "install" or "market".
- Oh, and the "Download" button no longer works after pressing it 2 or 3 times. I suppose this is to "protect me" from evil scammers, of course.
Dark patterns galore.
Apple claim that the iOS App Store is a separate entity to the iPadOS App Store, and thus, doesn’t qualify as a gatekeeper under the EU DMA. Apple have made alternative app stores only available to iPhones running iOS 17.4+.
Apple may benefit from you registering your disappointment with them directly, so that they can stop bragging about their immense customer satisfaction percentages in future product launches.
https://mastodon.social/@stroughtonsmith/112287515017810339/...
AltStore is more like a franchise of the App Store where Apple is still in charge, but doesn't directly run it.
What's funny is that here in Europe where this AltStore now exists, Android is clearly far more common than Apple already anyway.
I hope you're joking. If you're an Apple user that's invested in their ecosystem "just getting an Android phone" could probably mean changing the way you do many things, resigning from services you were used to,, learning how to do things on the other side, and so on. That also applies when switching from Android to iPhone. It's just not that easy.
