I wonder how intentional it is that Apple chose to terminate Epic Games' developer account one business day prior to this going into effect. Epic Games presumably can't access the form since it can't log in. (And obviously they don't want to screw with the Unreal Engine's Apple account on this fight.)
If anything, I could actually see them wanting to release this earlier, and the whole Epic stuff delaying this release because it would've looked a lot worse if it had come up a lot closer to the incident. But either way, the release may have moved forward or back a little, but the intention was definitely there before the Epic incident.
This was announced before Epic violated the ToS whose account was terminated after the 14 days to comply with the App Store rules had elapsed.
This is false; the new policy dates from today and Epic's ToS violation was several weeks ago. This policy is clearly in response to the negative publicity and the judge's ruling barring Apple from ending Unreal Engine access on iOS.
> This is false; the new policy dates from today and Epic's ToS violation was several weeks ago. This policy is clearly in response to the negative publicity and the judge's ruling barring Apple from ending Unreal Engine access on iOS.
Strange to see someone so quick to denounce a statement as false & professes to know exactly why they announced it yet couldn't be bothered to do even the most rudimentary research? Why?
This change was well known in advance to anyone following the news cycle around the Hey saga & WWDC. Apple announced exactly this in a press release in June with this upcoming change [1]:
> First, developers will not only be able to appeal decisions about whether an app violates a given guideline of the App Store Review Guidelines, but will also have a mechanism to challenge the guideline itself. Second, for apps that are already on the App Store, bug fixes will no longer be delayed over guideline violations except for those related to legal issues.
I agree this was indeed announced prior to the Epic Games event, but Apple chose when to remove their developer account. Apple absolutely had the leeway to remove an app violating their terms (which at that point, the account is no longer violating the policy), but not close out the entire account. The choice to do that was punitive, because they really want Epic to roll back the change for revenue reasons.
I am not sure "they sued Apple" counts as a "legal reason" for blocking the app. Not giving Apple a cut of sales isn't illegal.
(Note the judge during the TRO hearing felt both companies were being stubborn here, as whether Epic removed the payment method or Apple allowed the app, the winning company to get back their monetary impact upon the conclusion of the case. Keeping the app off the store is "making a point" more than actually protecting any revenue on either side.)
It’s simple contract violation, Epic violated terms and conditions they agreed to in exchange for being on the Store.
Leaving the app up allows Epic to continue to break rules and Apple has consistently said if Epic submitted a version of Fortnite without the alternate purchase options and the dynamic updating that allowed Epic to modify it without App Review they’d put it back up. Instead Epic submitted three versions with those same features.
Apple's policy on terminating entire developer accounts is consistent in that malicious violations of the guidelines will be considered breach of contract and warrant deletion of the account within 14 days.
There have been a slew of high-profile App Store "altercations" over the past weeks/months, and Apple is an ongoing concern with it's own roadmaps and release schedules; who already announced policy changes were coming WWDC2020.
If this announcement was a month ago ppl might think it was Hey.com related, for example.
The change, as I understand it, is that today the policy goes into effect.