Facebook Criticizes Apple's App Store Policies, Launches Gaming App on iOS Without Games

Facebook has joined Microsoft in condemning Apple's App Store policies, after the company was forced to remove the games feature from its Facebook Gaming app, which launches today on iOS. From a report: In a statement, Facebook said it has had its Gaming app rejected multiple times by Apple in recent months, but Apple cited its App Store guidelines to justify the rejections, claiming the primary purpose of the Facebook Gaming app is to play games. Facebook says it shared usage data with Apple from its Android Facebook Gaming app that showed 95 percent of activity involves watching streams, but it was unable to change Apple's stance on the matter.

Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said it chose to go ahead with the launch of its app in the App Store, but users faced an "inferior" experience compared to Android users. "Unfortunately, we had to remove gameplay functionality entirely in order to get Apple's approval on the standalone Facebook Gaming app -- meaning iOS users have an inferior experience to those using Android," said Sandberg. "We're staying focused on building communities for the more than 380 million people who play games on Facebook every month -- whether Apple allows it in a standalone app or not." Microsoft, which is facing a similar challenge, said on Thursday: Our testing period for the Project xCloud preview app for iOS has expired. Unfortunately, we do not have a path to bring our vision of cloud gaming with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to gamers on iOS via the Apple App Store. Apple stands alone as the only general purpose platform to deny consumers from cloud gaming and game subscription services like Xbox Game Pass. And it consistently treats gaming apps differently, applying more lenient rules to non-gaming apps even when they include interactive content. All games available in the Xbox Game Pass catalog are rated for content by independent industry ratings bodies such as the ESRB and regional equivalents. We are committed to finding a path to bring cloud gaming with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate to the iOS platform. We believe that the customer should be at the heart of the gaming experience and gamers tell us they want to play, connect and share anywhere, no matter where they are. We agree.

The Market

[Dog-Cow]

I guess, absent anti-trust rulings which are years away, that we'll have to let users decide which is more important: these gaming apps or the iOS experience.

Myself, I'm not a gamer, so I will stick with iPhone because I like it.

Re:The Market

[_xeno_]

The thing is, Apple is not entirely wrong: this essentially is a way to do an end-run around the App Store. It's a way to allow games to be played on the iPhone that Apple has never seen and has no control over. It prevents Apple from having any say in the "iOS experience" for those games.

Of course, the obvious counter argument is "so what?" Why should Apple get a say as to how games play on iOS? Why should they be allowed to censor content (which they do)? Anyone who uses iOS is fully aware Apple doesn't bother doing any sort of quality control on apps in the App Store. Apps are frequently buggy and crash all the time. (Apple's built-in apps somehow manage to be worse. Mail does nothing but tell you "an account error has occurred," Safari routinely has to be force-quit and restarted to get it to load webpages, and so on.)

But if you believe that Apple should be allowed to curate the content available via their platform, then they're not wrong - these types of streaming services do an end-run around their ability to curate what a user would see as just another game they play on their phone.

Nothing to do with the iOS experience

[rsilvergun]

and everything to do with Apple's 30% cut of every piece of software sold on iOS.

To be fair to Apple there is a lot of work involved in building the ecosystem and platform. But there's nearly as much crap on iOS as there is on Android, they don't do much in the way of curation.

As for Anti-Trust, I doubt Facebook has a case. Not with Android available as a free and open competitor. Anti-trust law exists to increase competition, and the argument can be made that Facebook games being Android only does just that.

Meanwhile (and off topic) I still prefer my Android because the back of the phone isn't covered in pointless glass, so when I dropped it this morning I just picked it up and moved on :).

Re:

[LiteBulb]

Apple may not have a monopoly over mobile device sales, but they do have a monopoly over app sales on iOS.

Monopoly is defined as:
"Exclusive control by one group of the means of producing or selling a commodity or service.
n. A company, group, or individual having exclusive control over a commercial activity."

It doesn't say anywhere in that definition that is has to be a physical product or that there can't be similar products or services. By defintion, Apple absolutely does have a monopoly and they

Re:

[slack_justyb]

But if you believe that Apple should be allowed to curate the content available via their platform

Curation is one thing. What Apple is doing is adding a 30% off the top fee and ensuring that the fence they've erected to ensure payment of that fee isn't subverted. I mean, you've kind of indicated that. The Apple App Store isn't a bastion of apps that run well or have been quality tested, it's just a seething collection of people willing to give their cut. Ensuring that you don't somehow skip the bouncer isn't curation, it's licensing coercion at best.

And it's for this reason that the House Judiciary

Re:

[tlhIngan]

What Apple is doing is adding a 30% off the top fee and ensuring that the fence they've erected to ensure payment of that fee isn't subverted.

There are plenty of ways to subvert it. Plenty of developers only pay Apple $99/year for their apps and keep all the revenue.

The most common and easy way is to sell advertising in apps. Google and Apple don't get their 30% cut - 30% of a free app is $0, and the money the developer ears through ads goes straight to the developer and none is remitted to Apple or Google.

Re:

[dfghjk]

Well said, but don't say Apple "curates content available", this supports a straw man argument being made. Apple is a gatekeeper of apps on its platform, not content generally. Apple doesn't enforce restrictions on websites you can visit, for example, and that is far more what people mean by "content" than apps are.

Sure, anything downloaded to a device is "content" up until it gets executed ON the device, and then it's a particular kind of content that Apple has always insisted on approving first. Web pa

Re:

[brunes69]

Apple needs to do a much much better job "curating" all the garbage on the app store before it has any credibility at all to imply that it has to "curate" XBox games.

The idea that AAA Xbox titles somehow need to be "curated", while a bajillion "flashlight" apps and "fart noise" apps do not, is so ridiculous.

Re:

[SkonkersBeDonkers]

The short answer is yes, I like all those things. It's part of the reason I have an iPhone and not an Android. Anyone who doesn't like these things has a zillion options besides iPhones.

Re:

[jellomizer]

As someone who just moved from an iPhone to a Samsung.
The iPhone experience and consistency and quality of the apps is indeed better on Apple products. On my Samsung, I finding a lot of my apps will crash, become unresponsive, or when an Ad pops up, there is no way to close it, forcing me to reboot the phone.

That being said. The main reason why I wanted to switch is valid, Apple has such a tight hold on what will run on their device and what will not, sometimes crosses into the unreasonable zone. Emulato

Avoid Samsung

[rsilvergun]

I hate to say it but their phones are garbage. Great specs but lousy hardware. They've been coasting on the reputation gained from the old Galaxy line in the... 2010s was it? It was a long time ago.

LG and Motorola are solid, and a Google Pixel too. Motorola's are especially nice since most models have a replaceable battery.

Respectfully gotta disagree

[caveat]

My Samsung experience is definitely the opposite. My wife's old S6's battery is pretty much shot, but plugged in it still works fine, we use it for household stuff including the building stupid phone-based front door buzzer. My S7 doesn't even have battery issues; I keep it around as an emergency backup. My latest, an S10, actually took a dip into a 350F deep fryer at work for about 30 seconds, after immediately going into ice water for a few minutes followed by a good scrubbing, it was as good as the day I

Re:

[Joviex]

On my Samsung, I finding a lot of my apps will crash, become unresponsive, or when an Ad pops up, there is no way to close it, forcing me to reboot the phone.

And my anecdotal experience using nothing but Android for 15 years is completely the opposite. Everything works, well, not a lot of issues.

Anecdotal experience is only useful if that is the majority case -- it isnt. You are using speaking points from Apple from a decade ago about Android products.

Whatever you bought that is crashing like that, its either user error or a bad HW.

Re:

[dfghjk]

You have Six on one hand? You freak.

Sad to hear that continues to be a problem, but not surprising. I switched to Android twice before but switched back for precisely this reason. App quality on Android was always terrible, and a locked in experience is better, even if not ideal, than one that is never better than half way to what you want.

Also, you can choose between a company that denies some apps on its platform and a company that is a willing extension of the FBI. Apple's really not so bad in that c

Re:

[Luckyo]

This is far from the only thing that is missing on iOS. For example here in Finland, by far the most popular free (as in beer, no ads or anything of the sort, just routing, timetables, live maps etc fetched from open APIs of each municipality's system) app for public transit is not available on iOS. Because owner openly stated on his dev page that he can't be bothered to jump through apple's app store hoops.

So it's android only, and his dev page comments are choke full of "I switched to iphone, and I can't

Re:

[Dog-Cow]

I went through the hoops 11 years ago to become a solo developer for iPhoneOS (as it was then called). Sounds like your guy is just lazy. Or needs an excuse because his real reason is even more ridiculous.

Re:

[Luckyo]

This is the first time I ever heard calling someone successful in their hobby that pays nothing, not spending effort and money pleasing a corporation that doesn't want people like him on their platform and making them jump through hoops "lazy".

Because "professional developers" are a tiny minority of people making software. Most people are hobbyists who aren't paying their bills with their hobby.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[spire3661]

They have, its called Oculus.

A partial "solution"

[davidwr]

For games that can be played over Safari or over a remote-desktop tool like VNC or Microsoft RDP, vendors can easily cut Apple out of the loop.

That said, there are games where latency or other issues make this a non-starter, at least for many players.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[_xeno_]

And Microsoft stands alone with the only console that requires an online subscription to play free-to-play games like Fortnite and COD Warzone.

I thought they all did that now: Nintendo has Nintendo Online for $20/year and Sony has PlayStation Plus for $60/year, both required to play anything online on their respective consoles.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

"Committed to finding a path onto Apple App Store"

[Computershack]

Personally I'd not bother. Let Apple have their policies and be the only platform without the things everyone else is enjoying. Eventually people will wake up to Apple's 1984 Orwellian levels of control and move away from it and hopefully once that happens they'll realise just how shit Apple was both in the stuff they make and their business practices.

Apple......

[SuperDre]

Is only thinking about Apple and not its users. The reason they ban these apps is because they want you to use their paid service, and that's the only reason.. It has got nothing to due with possible 'lesser' experience. At least with Android it's easy to sideload an app, with Apple they made it almost impossible (for regular users).

Re:

[Arkham]

Regular users don't want to side load apps because the Play Store has everything that an average user should ever need or want. That's a power user feature that much of the time is just to load pirated software, and the rest of the time is a trick by someone to compromise the phone of someone's grandma.

Re:

[Rockoon]

That's a power user feature that much of the time is just to load pirated software, and the rest of the time is a trick by someone to compromise the phone of someone's grandma.

So side-loading the facebook app would be which of those?

Your reasoning is circular.

Re:

[ebyrob]

Heaven forbid someone would ever want to fix something or, I don't know, develop software for such a horrible^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H device.

Funny how there are just so many more users than writers of apps that people forget. Producers do actually have to EXIST for there to be content.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Regular users don't want to side load apps because the Play Store has everything that an average user should ever need or want.

Except browsers that don't suck rocks

If scientists can change gene names for Excel ...

[aoeusnth]

Scientists had to change the names of genes in order for Excel not to convert them to dates by default. SCIENTISTS.

Why is Facebook and Microsoft surprised they have to wait for Apple to decide whether they want to allow 3rd-party gaming platforms on iOS?

The fact Facebook even attempted to quote statistics ("95% of activity involves watching streams") despite the obvious intent of the app's name ("Facebook Gaming") just indicates they know exactly what's going on but are telling their PR to say something else.

So I give zero fracks what FB and MS are whining about. I imagine Apple gives less than zero fracks, if that were possible.

Re:

[kingbilly]

I dislike Excel defaults. Always hearing from our users that things are being converted to scientific notification. Then I have to help them clean up files they get from vendors, because the vendors has to Excel-proof EVERY LAST PIECE OF DATA by surrounding it with =" ", presumably to avoid formatting. Our shipping department needs that, as you can't add the extra junk into a tracking website and expect it to work.


Wanna know something crappy? You know how Excel does that thing where if the column isn't

Re:

[ayesnymous]

Idiot scientists. Instead of changing gene names, they could have just changed the format of cells from "General" to "Text", and Excel wouldn't have converted them to dates.

There's a reason Apple almost went bust in 1997

[ebyrob]

There's a good reason Apple almost went out of business (bankrupt) in 1997. They don't like to play well with any other companies at all. Their anti-competitive practices have always been far worse than Microsoft, they just never had enough market share to get in trouble for it.

Loophole

[im_thatoneguy]

If you can stream games from a desktop the solution seems obvious. Microsoft has to put the game selection screen into the stream not the app. Host a lightweight HTML game selection UX and then stream it over the game stream.

The experience would be identical except the user would just incidentally be playing a game.