The nefarious Apple has been caught red-handed… doing what it openly admitted to.
Famous App Store fan Tim Sweeney tweets about this Bloomberg report:
Bloomberg was investigating @actonline, a fake “app developer interest group” that Apple funds to lobby politicians while its monopoly stifles developers. Shame on Apple and shame on this deceitful astroturf.
Macalope isn’t sure how “deceitful” the Apple logo, which literally comes first on the “About” page in the “Sponsors” section, can be considered. But it’s certainly rude and clumsy, almost to the point where Tim Cook comes out brandishing honey-baked hams tied to his fists.
But Tim isn’t the only one whose hands smell around here for the holidays.
Let’s also remember that Tim Sweeney himself is more than clumsy.
Epic Games Founder Tim Sweeney Compares Fighting Apple to Civil Rights Fighting
It looks like someone who said something like that must be embarrassed enough to err on their side. No say more in the future, but when you’re the face of a noisy lawsuit about wanting to break Apple’s monopoly power so you can establish your own monopoly power, it’s hard to sit on the sidelines.
The Bloomberg article referenced by Sweeney gives more information about Apple’s involvement.
The group, known as ACT, says it is not beholden to Apple, but has confirmed that it receives more than half of its funding from the company. Former employees say the real percentage is much higher.
IDG
Much higher than “more than half”? For example, one hundred twenty percent?
Dude, that’s a lot of percent if it’s true.
Rick VanMeter, a former congressional aide and head of rival developer group Coalition for App Fairness, said the ACT’s alleged representation of app developers is misleading given its relationship with Apple.
Oh really! Did the Coalition for App Fairness say that? Good.
The coalition is, of course, the group that Tim Sweeney’s Epic Games is helping build and on the board of. Epic also provided funding to the group. Yes indeed. This, unlike what Apple did, is in no way “shameful” or “deceitful” because of things and other things, and oh look, over there, the spider that was on the queen’s coffin. is now a playable character in Fortnite for a small fee, isn’t that amazing.
Bloomberg, which published The Big Hack and never retracted it, even after it was vehemently denied by all involved and remains unconfirmed, simply notes that Epic Games is a “member of the VanMeter Coalition for App Fairness” without going into details. . the fact that, according to The Verge, the Coalition “was actually created and funded by Epic specifically to help win the case” against Apple. It looks like Kind an important point to omit when you embed Tim Sweeney’s tweets into your article.
To reiterate, the funding for such a lobbying organization that claims to be mainstream is gross and should be below Apple, at least as a company that is justifiably proud of its success based on selling great products that people love.
But what about criticism of Tim Sweeney? Nope.