This whole trial is being a huge mess.

1. Day 1 kids screaming on stream.

2. A ton of confidential third party data leaking.

3. Sony refusing cross platform play because it wouldn't earn them money directly meanwhile they were claiming it was for technical reasons.

4. Tim Sweeney going off on a weird tangent trying to claim Fornite is a "metaverse" and not a game.

5. Judge getting annoyed with all the requests to seal records from a ton of companies.

6. Epic lawyer saying he wants a record sealed because he doesn't want to leak that Paradox is doing a deal with Epic. And Apple lawyer pointing out he just made his request pointless.

7. Epic paid so far 1 billion USD to convince devs to not sell in competitor stores.

8. Epic tried to convince Nintendo to sell on Epic Store (lol)

9. Apple lawyer pointing out that Epic bans rule breakers, and Epic broke rules.

Emphasis mine:

> “You may not be aware, then, that the description of that game includes a list of fetishes, which include many words that *are not appropriate for us to speak in federal courts*,”

> “So Epic Games, your store, is on the hook for whatever process itch.io put in place to review these games that are *so offensive we cannot speak about them here*, correct?”

I'm floored that this line of reasoning is allowed in court, it all hinges on the assumed puritanism of the court and the implied ethics of that.

It gives no information whatsoever about the actual content either, it allows the judge and everyone to fill in what they find "offensive" while we know Apples bar for this is low and extremely wonky.

Just for example, Facebook removes images of breastfeeding. You cannot discuss that just mentioning "offensive images" - the content matters for the judgement.

This whole thing is a shit show. I’ve said for awhile that App Store monopolies won’t last forever. But it’s not clear to me what the alternative is and maybe that’s why they will last.

First there are a couple of different issues. Deciding what’s on the App Store is one issue but payment processing is a potential separate issue.

Second 30% May have made sense once when this was a small business. It’s not anymore. Apple is inviting these lawsuits by simply not throwing big publishers a home with reduced rates.

Third, the whole tax on digital purchases is completely arbitrary. There was a time when Apple was working out what to do with Amazon and that’s when this role came about. Not being able to purchase kindle books just highlights the artificial and arbitrary nature of all this.

Fourth, at the risk of offending HN folks who self-servingly believe everyone wants or needs side-loading apps, most people benefit from the filtering of apps. Side-loading and unrestricted third party payments would simply be another attack vector.

Lastly, a bunch of different app stores is a terrible user experience. Just look at the friction of finding which streaming service has a particular movie or TV show.

I honestly think Apple could make most of these objections and potential problems go away by simply having a tiered percentage that rewards high volume publishers. It could scale down to 10% at which point the business case for an expensive legal challenge mostly disappears.

You can download an app from the App Store called a "browser". This browser lets you access anything on the world wide web. There's explicit content on the web. Therefore you must remove browsers from the App Store.

I’m not familiar with itch.io; is it actually relevant whether or not itch.io lists adult content, even if itch.io is listed on the Epic store? Apple blocks adult content (as much to my frustration as to one of the top comments on the kotaku article), but I can go into the iOS App Store, download the Amazon app, and see their dildo and porn collections, so it feels like a hypocritical argument on Apple’s part. (I don’t even have to be signed into the Amazon app).

How does that help Apple's case? Isn't the fact that some competing store can't offer porn apps on iOS proof in Epic's favor that Apple should allow 3rd party stores?

There are plenty of VR 3D Porn games (not video). They could potentially run on iOS but since there is no way to install them and no alternative store they aren't allowed.

Note: Apple themselves argued code = speech in their FBI trial. Given that, disallowing certain apps is disallowing certain speech. Apple might not sell porn videos, or porn books (though they probably actually do), or porn music (though the probably actually do) but, all of those things can be installed on your iOS device in other ways. But, porn apps can not and there are plenty of types of porn apps that can't be done via web apps, and certainly not via iOS Safari with it's lack of APIs.

If Apple blocked users from watching/reading/listening to porn on their iOS device people would be likely find it unacceptable. The same should be true for porn apps by Apple's own logic.

They have the kind of erotica that used to be done in Flash. So what? That stuff is more funny than erotic. PornHub is easily available to anyone with access to a web browser. Get over it.

Fussing about porn is usually an excuse for controlling something else.

What is the issue with porn? Is there something bad about it? If so, what? Seeing people naked? Seeing people having sex?

The article even mentions porn in one sentence with hate:

    A little further down, you say
    no porn and no hate,” Apple’s
    lawyer continued. “Do you see that?"

How is epic having an app that can be used to get offensive content different from the Apple App Store allowing web browsers?

Oh boy. I'd reply back with Leisure Suit Larry on iOS, just to poke fun at the puritan rhetoric.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/leisure-suit-larry-reloaded/id...

Good to see itch.io getting so much press :) The founder is also the author of https://moonscript.org/

Imagine how high apples stock price will go when they're forced to allow porn on the app store. They're missing out on so much potential revenue right now.

Isn't it the same thing for mobile web browsers offered on the Apple app store? You can download them and use them to access and download porn.

This is like the 90s era Nintendo vs SEGA Senate hearings about video game violence all over again.

Cynically grasping pearls to try to damage a business competitor.

What's the argument for banning porn, anyway?

You can download Chrome, Firefox or even Safari and watch porn online for free from your xOS device, nothing easier and they know it.

> "Folks who want porn can buy an android."

> "You might care more about porn when you have kids. It’s not about freedom, it’s about Apple trying to do the right thing for its users."

—Steve Jobs

I don’t understand. Is there any reason the answer to these questions couldn’t have been.

‘Yes’ and ‘So what’?

Are they really trying to dance around the fact that some, if not most, people like sexual content?

If apple are fored to allow other stores through its app store, then those stores and apps in them would have to adhere to the same app store guidlines. What I would like to see is a way to sideload alternative stores or ipa. They can make it as hard as to enabling this, instead of a simple switch for security and privcy purposes. So that we don't have to fiddle with the Altstore to install iTorrent, Emulators or Youtube++

Isn't it funny that itch.io even has a sexualized/porn game on iOS?

    > https://fymm-game.itch.io/dead-dating-demo
    > https://apps.apple.com/app/dead-dating-pd/id1554938911

undefined

undefined

undefined

Good. Apple has no right to demand that the entire world conform to their views on sexuality. That there has been a disagreement on this lasting this long is insane.

undefined

This last line is obnoxious...

> So there we go: That’s all cleared up now! Apple’s advertiser-sanitized, sex work- and LGBTQ-unfriendly utopia is saved from scary indie games like “Horny Chronicles.” Thank goodness.

I for one don’t want to see all that crap in app stores when I’m browsing for something, and I don’t want my kids seeing that stuff... it has nothing to do with being “LGBTQ utopia”. It’s simple called good taste.

Same reason when I turn on the TV I don’t want to be assaulted with this stuff.

We’ve all decided long ago that the way forward with free speech is to categorize, and rate content... movie, tv ratings, preview ratings, etc. By having proper channels and places for certain content free speech is actually extend.

I’m thankful Apple tries hard to make the App Store a place of quality. So let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water by forcing stores to be completely open un moderated spaces in the name of more competition.

Edit: People are missing the point here. The issue is about intent. Browsers and Amazon apps are not app stores. So having those available doesn’t point to intent to allow specific types of content on an app platform.