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IOS Software Apple Games Hardware Technology

Steam Link Finally Comes To iOS, One Year After Apple Initially Rejected It (gamespot.com) 71

Posted by BeauHD from the better-late-than-never dept.
Valve's Steam Link app, which brings streaming games to your mobile device, is now available as a free download for iOS and Apple TV. The iOS launch comes nearly one year after Apple rejected the app due to "business conflicts." GameSpot reports: The Steam Link app promises to bring "desktop gaming to your iPhone or iPad." Users can pair a Steam controller or any MFI (Made-for-iPhone/iPad) controller to play games over a network connection provided they are on the same local network. The Steam Link app is effectively a replacement for the physical Steam Link device that Steam discontinued in 2018. Steam Link is already available on Android. As the Verge notes in their report, the biggest difference between the iOS and Android versions is that the iOS Steam Link app "doesn't allow users to purchase games from the Steam store, unlike on Android."

You can download Steam Link from iTunes here.
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Steam Link Finally Comes To iOS, One Year After Apple Initially Rejected It More

Steam Link Finally Comes To iOS, One Year After Apple Initially Rejected It

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  • I'm sure this has nothing to do with the supreme court decision to allow the antitrust case against Apple. Maybe Apple will reject the next version with a cover reason that sounds better than "business conflicts".

    • Perhaps. But maybe they are getting wise to the idea that people want the least amount of devices to cover the services that they want, which aren’t necessarily all in Apple’s ecosystem. I used an AppleTV, then got an Android TV device (Nvidia Shield) specifically to be able to play local media (via Kodi) and stream games (via Steam). And since the Android device covered all my other needs as well, I ditched the AppleTV.
      • Nah, itâ€(TM)s the lawsuit. No one wants a united Supreme Court up their ass.
      • I have an AppleTV 4K, I *had* sideloaded kodi, but then I discovered VLC does just as well for streaming local media, it connects to my server via samba just fine, and has better picture quality. Steamlink solves the last problem I had with it, and itâ(TM)s user experience is in general far better than any android vers Iâ(TM)ve ever tried
        • Does VLC run well on the AppleTV? When I tried it first it was a bit cumbersome.

          I quite like Kodi's library functions. It ran somewhat poorly on cheapy Android TV devices, but on the more powerful and expensive ones like the Shield, performance of Kodi and the UI in general are great.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by phayes ( 202222 )

      I'm sure you're not just an idiotic troll. Maybe the problem was precisely as Apple described last year: that Steam wasn't respecting the App store guidelines, specifically that the Steam app as submitted last year attempted to sell content in the iOS app without giving Apple it's 30/15% cut. As _everyone_ already knows, whether it's Amazon or Netflix of Google, etc to respect Apple's App store guidelines, if there are in-app purchases, you MUST give Apple it's cut but you are free to propose an app that ma

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by AHuxley ( 892839 )
        30% - 30% is 40% left after getting approved for publishing on a fully curated OS?
      • It just lets you play (view) Steam games that you're playing on your PC (which presumably you've already bought. It's basically a screen mirroring app. Your PC uses the GPU's h.264 encoder to turn the game into a video stream in real-time. Steam Link receives that video stream and plays it on your device (other PC, tablet, phone, Steam Link box connected to a TV), and sends control inputs from your device back to the PC to control the game. It's basically a glorified video streaming app.

        I suppose you

      • I'm sure you're not just an idiotic troll. Maybe the problem was precisely as Apple described last year: that Steam wasn't respecting the App store guidelines, specifically that the Steam app as submitted last year attempted to sell content in the iOS app without giving Apple it's 30/15% cut.

        So what the parent said, "business conflicts".

        The class action is an entirely different matter - even if Apple loses the Class Action, all devs that want their app on Apple's App store and sell in-app content would have to respect the guidelines.

        Except the guidelines touch on very similar borderline anti-competitive practices. You can't honestly be so naive to think they aren't attempt to look better in the wake of a potentially unfavorable ruling which would open the flood gates to exploring how anticompetitive their other practices are right?

    • I'm sure this has nothing to do with the supreme court decision to allow the antitrust case against Apple. Maybe Apple will reject the next version with a cover reason that sounds better than "business conflicts".

      If you follow the links backwards, you'll find that Apple rejected the app not due to "business conflicts" but due to "conflicts with its App Store guidelines".

      Steam changed their app so now it conforms to the App Store guidelines. There is no reason for Apple to reject it. Just like there is no reason for Apple to reject the Netflix app, which did exactly the same.

      And if an update is rejected (which happens to everyone sometimes and is usually fixed within a day), then the old version remains availab

      • Well yes, but the "conflicts with its App Store guidelines". was: You must not make apps which compete with app store.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by phayes ( 202222 )

          No. Wrong. Apps in the Appstore that sell in-app content that does not use Apple's purchasing framework (that gives Apple a cut) are forbidden.

          Free apps can use Apple's App store infrastructure for free distribution and updates and can profit from content sold outside of the app. Amazon, Google Netflix and many others do so and have been doing so for years. They all "compete" with Apple's App Store. Why did it take Valve 12 months to setup purchasing on their own infrastructure instead of Apple's for iOS Ap

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dgatwood ( 11270 )

            Free apps can use Apple's App store infrastructure for free distribution and updates and can profit from content sold outside of the app. Amazon, Google Netflix and many others do so and have been doing so for years. They all "compete" with Apple's App Store. Why did it take Valve 12 months to setup purchasing on their own infrastructure instead of Apple's for iOS Apps?

            You're fundamentally mischaracterizing Apple's position here. App developers are not allowed to provide any mechanism to get from their app

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

              You'll notice that iOS is the only platform where you can't buy content from Amazon Instant Video without opening up a web browser by hand and signing in. And if you don't have a Netflix subscription, the app won't help you get one. And you can't buy Google Play books. And so on.

              All of these user-hostile behaviors are the natural and inevitable end result of Apple's utterly asinine policies in this area. Apple tried to get ridiculously greedy, and the result is that users are harmed. It really is that simpl

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                Consider it from the user perspective. They went to Amazon Prime Video and bought a video there, suing their Amazon credentials and payment. They may suddenly go to iTunes and expect to find the video there, where it wouldn't be. They check their credit card and find they've been charged for the movie, but now lost complete track of where that movie is.

                First, users aren't stupid. They are capable of understanding that content bought in one app isn't available in other apps. I don't expect cards bought in

          • illinois lottery has an app and I don't think the laws will let apple take an 30% cut of that.

  • Apple needs to get over the control-freak thing of not letting any third parties operate their own "stores" inside their apps. In cases like this, where the app is really more of a launcher/enabler of content you had to initially purchase from someone outside of Apple's ecosystem anyway, they should let it be.

    This isn't the first time they made a third party's app less functional in the iOS variant, just because they have problems with letting people do a financial transaction with them directly in the sof

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Dunbal ( 464142 ) *

      get over the control-freak thing of not letting any third parties operate

      But, but, muh walled pris- er, garden!

  • No reason why the Steam Link app was rejected, especially when the PS4 Remote Play app was approved and does basically the same thing.
  • Apple initially rejected the app due to "business conflicts".

    Not so: If you follow two links backwards, Apple rejected the app due to "business conflicts with app guidelines". Now that is a statement that doesn't actually make sense. Apple can and will reject any app due to "app conflicts with app guidelines". There is no such thing as "business conflicts with app guidelines".

    And just like Netflix, Steam changed its app to conform to Apple's app guidelines. (Sorry, not quite correct, Netflix always co

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by phayes ( 202222 )

      Netflix continues to profit from Apple's App-store infrastructure for free distribution and updates and has always been free to propose an app that uses content purchased entirely outside their app. Initially, Netflix also used Apple's purchasing infrastructure but decided that the 15% on renewals was too high a cut. Apple was fine with Netflix excising their purchasing infrastructure from the app as long as Netflix didn't try to install a competing infrastructure in it. As you could already buy Netflix on

  • As any reasonable person rejects Apple. /s

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