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Epic’s lawsuit against Apple was already monumental when it focused solely on the iOS App Store, a walled garden that has grown to intercontinental size with 1.5 billion devices supported. Yesterday, the battle between the creator of Fortnite and who owns the platform escalated after Apple explicitly threatened the future of Epic’s Mac and Unreal Engine businesses – a move with direct consequences for reality virtual, augmented reality, television, and film developers beyond Epic and Apple themselves.
That threat was tucked away in a letter from Apple, currently labeled Exhibit B in Epic’s request for a temporary restraining order to protect its business. On pages 52 and 53 of the 197-page repository, Apple says it plans to terminate Epic’s developer license by adding another payment mechanism to the iOS version of Fortnite, and outlines the consequences.
You will also lose access to the following programs, technologies and capabilities:
– All Apple software, SDK, API and development tools
– Preliminary versions of iOS, iPad OS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS
– Preliminary versions of beta tools such as Reality Composer, Create ML, Apple Configurator, etc.
– Engineering efforts to improve Unreal Engine hardware and software performance on Mac and iOS hardware; optimize Unreal Engine on Mac for creative workflows, virtual assemblies and their CI / Build systems; and adoption and support of ARKit features and future VR features in Unreal Engine by their XR team
Make sure you read the last part in detail. Apple not only threatens to keep Fortnite out of the iOS App Store, but also to hamper Unreal Engine performance on Macs and iOS devices. Even if you want to interpret this language most generously to Apple, that says it won’t try to get Unreal Engine to work properly on its devices – especially in the midst of the Mac’s transition to ARM / Apple chips – or d ” activate Unreal Engine to support Apple’s future AR and VR initiatives.
That letter could be Exhibit B now, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it reappear as Exhibit A in a massive antitrust case against Apple. Challenge Apple on iOS payments and it will explicitly threaten to delete your business not only from iOS devices, but Macs, iPads, Apple TVs, and Apple Watch as well. This isn’t just a bad look for Apple, given that Tim Cook testified under oath to Congress last month that “we don’t hit back and harass people; it is strongly contrary to our corporate culture. The letter is also strong proof of antitrust practices: follow all the rules in the walled garden, or we will prevent you and everything you do from being used both inside and outside the house. garden.
It’s impossible to overstate the importance of Unreal Engine to the next generation of immersive devices. Epic’s software is now used to generate photorealistic content for holographic 3D screens, giant 3D windows, AR headsets, VR headsets, game consoles, movies, serial TV shows and even broadcasts. by Weather Channel. The company’s latest real-time ray tracing demos seem virtually indistinguishable from reality, paving the way for home computers to deliver cinema-quality 3D visuals. Yesterday, Epic said that “millions of developers rely on Unreal Engine to develop software, and hundreds of millions of consumers use this software.”
The threat is significant – perhaps greater than what the Apple App Store team realized when they sent this letter. Telling all those Unreal Engine developers to move away from the Mac means pushing them to embrace Windows PCs, where Epic’s tools and apps will continue to work and gain power. I’d be surprised if there were actually a million (or millions of) Unreal Engine developers, but it’s possible that an Epic-inspired Mac-to-PC development switch could eclipse the Apple exodus caused. by removing Final Cut Pro X and the Mac Pro, alienating professional video editors that relied on earlier versions.
To be clear, I don’t think Apple’s loss of Unreal Engine developers is preventing those developers from continuing and expanding their efforts on other platforms; in other words, they’ll continue to create immersive content, TV shows, and movies – content just won’t be created on Apple devices, and AR / VR experiences won’t be playable on them either. While it would be easy to deduce this as a loss for Apple, and therefore a loss for its customers, the reality is that Apple’s iOS devices have enough market share in the United States and abroad. to influence the course of content creation. Some developers will therefore opt for solutions with the lowest common denominator that work on all platforms, Apple and others.
Going forward, I’m very concerned about Apple’s explicit reference to retaining “support for ARKit features and future VR features in Unreal Engine by their XR team”. It’s an open secret that Apple is working on AR / VR glasses, and Exhibit B suggests that Unreal Engine was going to power at least some of the visuals for the glasses. Killing a relationship that could allow Apple devices to display photorealistic AR / VR content for the benefit of a second-tier content development solution isn’t a smart business. It’s even worse when everything revolves around whether Apple can take a fraction of Fortnite’s in-app purchases.
Apple ends its letter on a pleasant enough note, telling Epic that it wants to see the company continue to participate in its development programs – all Epic needs to do, Apple suggests, is to remove the alternative integrated payment system. of Fortnite. Epic clearly wasn’t interested in doing this until Apple threatened all of its business, and now that Apple has shown its cards, the stakes are higher than ever for both companies. Just as was the case with Qualcomm, where Apple belatedly backed down and struck a deal that kept its iPhones viable, the combination of antitrust investigations and widespread developer anger should be clear signs for Apple executives that ‘they’re going in the wrong direction here. A sudden reversal in price would go a long way in improving everyone’s fortunes and reducing the pressure on a situation that will only get worse for Apple over time.
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