Apple: We Won’t Make an Exception (Fortnite)
So now Apple has tied together access to iOS, MacOS, TVOS, WatchOS, and Safari extensions (think those are all covered under the same dev agreement) in a decision over App Store commission on iOS. I suspect terminating the dev agreement might terminate the &quot;publisher account,&quot; too--it&#x27;s possible Epic apps won&#x27;t even be findable in Purchases.<p>I realize Epic is hardly a sympathetic company in this to many gamers, and their motives are pure profit and control of their own cash cow platform. That said, Apple is demonstrating about as much bundled-product market control as a company possibly can. They&#x27;re preventing access to a whole ecosystem over a single product, and they can&#x27;t even argue their ecosystem is vertical since individual TVOS and iPad devices can run without phones. Sure, Epic isn&#x27;t <i>on</i> TVOS yet, but they could be...but only if Apple likes what they do on iPhone.<p><i>IF</i> Apple is dominant enough to be subject to Clayton Act controls, this sort of cross-product behavior will most certainly prompt that scrutiny. The fact that the developer program is a &quot;single product&quot; backing them is irrelevant when the consumer products are separate. Epic  is making a bold move, but I think it&#x27;s a very well-timed one.