Archive for September 23, 2021

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Apple Lies About Epic Again

Apple:

As we’ve said all along, we would welcome Epic’s return to the App Store if they agree to play by the same rules as everyone else.

Tim Sweeney:

Epic has asked Apple to reactivate our Fortnite development account. Epic promises that it will adhere to Apple’s guidelines whenever and wherever we release products on Apple platforms.

Apple:

Apple has exercised its discretion not to reinstate Epic’s developer program account at this time. Furthermore, Apple will not consider any further requests for reinstatement until the district court’s judgment becomes final and nonappealable.

Tim Sweeney (MacRumors, Hacker News):

Apple lied. Apple spent a year telling the world, the court, and the press they’d “welcome Epic’s return to the App Store if they agree to play by the same rules as everyone else”. Epic agreed, and now Apple has reneged in another abuse of its monopoly power over a billion users.

[…]

Late last night, Apple informed Epic that Fortnite will be blacklisted from the Apple ecosystem until the exhaustion of all court appeals, which could be as long as a 5-year process.

This seems clear-cut to me. Yes, Epic willfully disregarded the App Store guidelines last year, and Apple had cause to terminate its developer account. But, just this month, Apple said that Epic could come back if it agreed to follow the guidelines. Epic promised to, but instead of following through, Apple now says it won’t even consider lifting the ban for potentially five years.

I say that Apple lied again because, last September, Epic reported that Apple was going to block its customers from using “Sign In with Apple.” Apple told The Verge and John Gruber that this was not, and never was, the case. But then it came out in court filings that Epic was telling the truth.

It’s surprising that Apple, which has historically been very careful about communications, would make statements like these that are so easily disproven. Perhaps it was emboldened after it became apparent that there were no consequences for its CEO lying to Congress last summer—other than its reputation among people who follow these things.

The other unfortunate thing about this story is that the Fortnite Mac app is also blocked, even though it isn’t in the App Store. You need a developer account to get a Developer ID certificate and notarize your app—otherwise macOS won’t launch the app and will suggest that it might be malware.

John Gruber (Hacker News):

But agreeing not to break Apple’s guidelines again seems in the spirit of what Apple had been asking for, regarding reinstating Fortnite.

M.G. Siegler:

I’ve long wondered if Sweeney and Epic weren’t playing a different kind of game than the one Apple is playing, and the moves today don’t dissuade me from that thinking. Yes, it’s entirely possible that Sweeney just wants this to be over with and wants Fortnite back in the App Store following the loss on most fronts with regard to their lawsuit. But actually, that doesn’t seem like the right read to me. Because if they wanted that, Sweeney obviously — obviously — would not have included a few very clear lines in his email […] to Apple’s Phil Schiller.

[…]

It’s basically saying to Apple: read the intent (and perhaps the room!) of what the judge was going for, don’t try to litigate the language down to the lowest common denominator.

[…]

“Wait a minute, that $2.5T company won’t let the game developer back in the App Store even after they lost the lawsuit, paid the fine, and agreed to their demands?!”

Previously:

iPhone 13 Reviews

Previously:

Update (2021-10-05): See also:

Keith Harrison:

Not much has changed but here’s a recap of what you need to know to update your apps for the new devices.

Ryan Jones:

Complete History of iPhone’s Camera Bump *estimated from product photos

Update (2021-10-15): See also:

iPad mini (6th Generation) Reviews

Previously:

Update (2021-10-05): Francisco Tolmasky:

MagSafe in the iPad mini would have been really nice. I want it on all of them, but the iPad mini seems like it would work best with existing stuff just due to its size.

Francisco Tolmasky:

It just really feels like we don’t need such a humongous (over 1 inch!) margin on the iPad mini, and we could instead make the icons (and text!) easily 1.3x bigger. It often feels like I have to hold it closer to my face than my iPhone to be able to see and use it properly.

Tim Hardwick:

Now that new iPad mini 6 owners have had a couple of days with Apple’s latest redesigned tablet, some users are noticing an issue being referred to as “jelly scroll” when viewing the screen in portrait mode.

The term refers to a noticeable effect when scrolling vertically through text-based content like a webpage or document, where each line of text appears to tilt down towards the left of the screen as it passes by. The effect makes it look as though one side of the display is responding faster than the other when a finger drags to scroll the page.

Andrew Cunningham:

Apple has told us that the “jelly scroll” issue on the 6th-generation iPad mini is normal behavior for LCD screens. Because these screens do refresh line by line, there is a tiny delay between when the lines at the top of the screen and lines at the bottom are refreshed. This can cause uneven scrolling issues like the ones observed on the iPad.

[…]

An iFixit teardown suggests that the iPad mini’s more noticeable scrolling issue is a byproduct of how the display controller is mounted.

Update (2021-10-08): Tim Hardwick:

Following complaints of “jelly scrolling” on the iPad mini 6 display, another issue has gained traction online that also has to do with the device’s 8.3-inch Liquid Retina LCD panel.

A poster on Reddit brought attention to a discoloration and distortion issue that they were having when touching the screen with the iPad in portrait orientation.

I got my 64gb Wi-Fi iPad Mini 6 just about a week ago and noticed that there seems to be an LCD clearance issue – if you put your mini in vertical orientation (with the power button on the top right) push very lightly on the screen and you will see distortion and discoloration about an inch down and in from the top right. On most models this will happen in three spots along the top of the display (when vertical).

iPad (9th Generation) Reviews

Previously: