Apple Loosens App Store Rules That Hurt Streaming Games, Classes (bloomberg.com) 13
Apple adjusted its App Store review guidelines to loosen restrictions on iPhone and iPad games that stream directly from the internet and in-app purchase rules that have frustrated developers. From a report: The changes mean Apple will approve games that stream from the web, versus from content installed on a device, for the first time. That reverses a rule that frustrated companies including Microsoft. The new rules will still require games to be submitted individually. That means companies still won't be able to launch all-you-can-eat streaming game services on Apple's platform. However, these services can now offer a catalog that directs users to other streaming games from the same developer. But that catalog must point players to the App Store to download those other games individually. Apple is also no longer imposing its in-app purchase requirements on online teaching apps, such as tutoring or workout offerings.
and when the govment says what apps teaching apps (Score:1)
and when the govment says what apps teaching apps or the EU says apple does not have 100% control on what can bypass in-app purchase rules.
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you post that again after the weed wears off?
Small steps trying to lower the number of enemies? (Score:2)
It seems to me that these are the minimal type steps, trying to get good press to not end up in a situation where they have to give up their 30% in most things.
I expect that there will be few other such minimal steps as the events unfold trying to give out the minimal concessions while still trying to seem responsive.
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I'm not clear on how this addresses Microsoft's concerns at all. I mean, what they're allowing Microsoft to do doesn't seem any more substantive than what Microsoft could do by creating a web app "catalog" app and having users save it their their home screens right now, except that it would be less useful, because games that can be played entirely in a browser could be launched directly from a Microsoft Web App, but would have to be individually wrapped in a useless native app container with what Apple is
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It means that xCloud is now at least theoretically permitted, even if Microsoft will have to jump through all sorts of hoops to make it work in practice (publishing a separate streaming client app for each game on the service and getting them individually approved). They should be able to tie it together well enough with cross-app launching/switching that from a user experience perspective, it would more or less work the same except with a brief trip to the app store the first time a user tries to launch a
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It means that xCloud is now at least theoretically permitted, even if Microsoft will have to jump through all sorts of hoops to make it work in practice (publishing a separate streaming client app for each game on the service and getting them individually approved).
What I'm not understanding is what prevented them from doing this before? Every modern game out there is, in a manner of speaking, a streaming game at this point, with content coming from servers. The only difference is the degree to which this is the case. So to me, this isn't so much Apple changing the rules, so much as acknowledging that they were never really enforcing that rule in the first place, and that they will continue to not do so. :-)
It all seems like a ton of wasted effort, though. Apple could just as easily require that Microsoft submit individual games for approval (as xCloud games and not individual app store submissions) before Microsoft is permitted to make the game available through the xCloud app.
Isn't that exactly what they're doing? I mean, perhaps ex
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What I'm not understanding is what prevented them from doing this before? Every modern game out there is, in a manner of speaking, a streaming game at this point, with content coming from servers. The only difference is the degree to which this is the case. So to me, this isn't so much Apple changing the rules, so much as acknowledging that they were never really enforcing that rule in the first place, and that they will continue to not do so. :-)
Games didn't stream much content, because they were forbidden from downloading or executing any form of code that adds or changes features and functionality. They even closed the loophole that Opera Mobile used to bypass webkit (where it executed the javascript on the server and sent the resulting HTML to their own on-device rendering engine) by specifically requiring all apps that act as a web browser to use webkit. In terms of xCloud, under the old rules, as far as I can tell, game streaming services woul
Too much control (Score:1)
Instead of being gracious, this just reminds me of that scene from Malcom in the Middle where Hal is being fitted for his house arrest monitor, and the officer taunts him over the range adjustment setting.
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