May 2, 2021 - Episode 593

What this episode covers

Description This week, Apple's giving up billions, Microsoft is giving up commissions, and Roku is giving up YouTube TV. Participants Scott Ertz Host Scott is a developer who has worked on projects of varying sizes, including all of the PLUGHITZ Corporation properties. He is also known in the gaming world for his time supporting the rhythm game community, through DDRLover and hosting tournaments throughout the Tampa Bay Area. Currently, when he is not working on software projects or hosting F5 Live: Refreshing Technology, Scott can often be found returning to his high school days working with the Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST), mentoring teams and helping with ROBOTICON Tampa Bay. He has also helped found a student software learning group, the ASCII Warriors, currently housed at AMRoC Fab Lab. Avram Piltch Host Avram's been in love with PCs since he played original Castle Wolfenstein on an Apple II+. Before joining Tom's Hardware, for 10 years, he served as Online Editorial Director for sister sites Tom's Guide and Laptop Mag, where he programmed the CMS and many of the benchmarks. When he's not editing, writing or stumbling around trade show halls, you'll find him building Arduino robots with his son and watching every single superhero show on the CW. Opening Powered by TeknoAXE Nifty Gifties Powered by Microsoft Store Apple loses first major case involving App Store payment policies There is no question that Apple's App Store policies are causing them a ton of trouble. They have been investigated by the European Union, The US Government, and more. There is a high-profile lawsuit against the company and a trade organization that has formed around changing Apple's policies. While Apple has continually argued that it's their store, their platform, and no one is required to participate, but many companies have disagreed - from Epic to Spotify, and that is where we pick up this week. read full article Piltch Point with Avram Piltch Powered by PureVPN Extra Life Powered by Loot Crate Microsoft becomes latest app store to reduce commission to 12 percent While Apple fights in court to retain their policies, other stores are changing their policies in order to attract users and developers alike. Epic Games, the most vocal opponent of Apple's App Store rules, started the trend by reducing commissions to 12%, while most other stores remained at 30%. Now, Microsoft is doing the same for game developers in the Microsoft Store on Windows. read full article News From the Tubes Powered by Malwarebytes Mighty brings browser streaming with all new privacy concerns Over the past few years, a lot of companies have attempted to prove the game streaming is a possibility. And, many companies have failed - until recently. Microsoft, Google, and NVIDIA each have a successful game streaming service that allows players to run the games remotely on a powerful gaming computer and only output the video to your computer. This concept was inevitably going to lead to other parts of the industry running similar experiments. The newest entry in this space is Mighty, a browser that runs remotely. read full article * DRM Not Included Powered by Amazon Prime Roku exercises platform control, boots YouTube TV from all devices In the early days of Roku, one of its big selling points was that there was no editorial control. Basically, anyone could develop an app for the platform and deploy it without interference from Roku, so long as very minimal rules were obeyed (no adult or pirated content). However, that has all changed in the past few years, with Roku requiring big platforms to agree to additional terms, and sign special publishing agreements. That makes Roku more like a cable provider than a content-agnostic platform. This week, YouTube TV fell victim to these contract disputes. read full article Closing Powered by Tech Podcast Network