Epic Games vs Apple antitrust lawsuit: Days 9, 10

May 16, 2021

"Fortnite" data, various interpretations; App Review contributes very little to iOS security.

On the ninth day, experts and scholars invited by Apple yesterday, Professor Lorin Hitt of the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania continued to discuss, mainly pointing out that Apple's commission ratio is flat or gradually declining, while game developers can provide paid transaction functions on many platforms , not limited to iOS.

Among Fortnite iOS and PS4 players, 35.9% and 32%, respectively, use other platforms. In the total play time and revenue of "Fortnite", iOS players accounted for 10% of the play time and 13.2% of the revenue, and the revenue per unit game time was slightly more effective. (Editor's note: It is different from the perspective of David Evans of Epic Games on the sixth day of interpreting the data, so you can refer to each other.)

Epic Games' David Evans questioned that Apple's "App Store Small Business Program" reduced the commission rate for some developers from 30% to 15% to support industrial innovation, but this also means that the price of commission rate, Not determined by the production and demand sides of the market? Does that mean that Apple can change the commission price at any time? Apple’s Lorin Hitt said Apple’s cut in commissions was an effort to help the ecosystem as a whole, but declined to comment on those analyses.

Next, Epic Games invited Michael Cragg from The Brattle Group, and proposed two distinctions between "static games" and "mobile games". "Static games" usually have an immersive experience, make good use of the large screen, and have relatively low development costs. high, while Action Games is the opposite. From this structure, the average weekly game time of "Fortnite" iOS players is only 47 minutes, but the average weekly game time of other platforms is as high as 6 or 7 hours, so the two experiences cannot be replaced by each other.

On the tenth day several witnesses cross-examined some of the issues discussed in the previous days. It is worth noting that the last witness, James Mickens, a Harvard computer science professor invited by Epic Games, can be paired with the slide .

Mickens combed the iOS system architecture and app distribution channels, and pointed out that most security architectures are at the software and hardware system layer. Compared with App Review, the contribution to security is very small, and it is difficult to improve the audit privacy or legal Compliance. Additionally, iOS is not significantly more secure than macOS, as there is quite a bit of overlapping system security architecture between the two.

(Editor’s note: In the process of App Review, part of the program is automatically checked. For example, Apple may know that a third-party SDK has leaked privacy or security issues, and can automatically find it, but of course this can also be obtained from the system layer. Just do it; the other part is manual review, but since the average review time for each app is only 6-12 minutes, reviewers often can only pick out faults in a "financial" style, and the legal compliance part is more often random. deal with.

In addition to forcing the operation of these loose and loose App Review, the most important thing is that after detecting malicious developer accounts, they can completely exempt their account permissions or remove their apps from the shelves, and then " tell his parents ". However, is it worth making the App Store the only distribution channel to mass consumers?

However, the editor is still very unlikely to let iOS open a third-party software store other than the App Store. The editor's better suggestion is to "publish the App Reivew", because Apple often takes privacy concerns in the name, and the content of the Bug Report or App Review is not made public, so you might as well provide the developer with a check item "Publish the content of this App Review." ”, just like the court will publish the judgment documents, so that the public can check whether it is an individual developer who is at fault, or the quality of the App Review is too poor? Lest Apple always complain about developers breaking the news to the media " If you run to the press and trash us, it never helps. ".

After all, App Review and App Review Board (in court and Apple's internal term, Executive Review Board) are all controlled by Apple. Isn't this a referee and judge? There is absolutely no judicial independence to speak of. )

Day 9 Refs:

Day 10 Refs: