We need your help now
Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.
You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.
If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.
Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
By continuing, you are indicating that you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
THE VOLCANO ON Spain’s La Palma island which erupted three weeks ago disrupting the lives of thousands of people is continuing to spew out endless streams of lava with no signs of stopping.
Authorities have monitored a new stream of molten rock on Sunday that has added to the destruction of more than 1,100 buildings. Anything in the lava’s path – homes, farms, swimming pools and industrial buildings in the largely agricultural area – has been destroyed.
The collapse of part of the volcanic cone on Saturday sent a flood of bright red lava pouring down from the Cumbre Vieja ridge that initially opened on 19 September.
The fast-flowing stream carried away huge chunks of lava that had already hardened, and an industrial park was quickly engulfed.
“We cannot say that we expect the eruption that began 21 days ago to end anytime soon,” Julio Perez, regional minister for security on the Canary Islands, said.
La Palma is part of Spain’s Canary Islands, an Atlantic Ocean archipelago off northwest Africa whose economy depends on the cultivation of the Canary plantain and tourism.
Some 6,000 residents were promptly evacuated after the initial eruption, and the new rivers of lava have not forced the evacuation of any more residents as they are staying within the exclusion zone created by authorities.
Government experts estimate that the largest of the lava flows measures almost one mile (1.5km) at its widest point, while the delta of new land being formed where lava is flowing into the Atlantic has reached 84 acres (34 hectares).
The scientific committee advising the government said that if the delta continued to grow outwards into the sea, parts of it could break off. That would generate explosions, gas emissions and large waves, committee spokeswoman Jose Maria Blanco said, but should not represent a danger to those outside the no-go zone.
The Canary Islands’ tourism industry had already been hard hit by the pandemic, and officials were urging tourists not to stay away.
“This eruption is impacting a part of the island, but La Palma is still a safe place and can offer a lot to those who visit,” Mariano Hernandez, the island’s leading authority, said.
The last eruption on La Palma 50 years ago lasted just over three weeks. The last eruption on all the Canary Islands occurred underwater off the coast of El Hierro island in 2011 and lasted five months.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
So in the end, Epic wants to use the Apple logistics system to deliver their apps to the users, but not to share their profits then.
Like when you ask Tesco to provide you with a few squaremeters in all of their shops for free to sell your products, use their trucks to deliver your goods to the shops for free and then sell vouchers for your products online and demand Tesco to accept those vouchers on their tills. And of course, if Tesco won’t advertise your product in their leaflets or try to charge you any fees for using their infrastructure, you’d sue them because of their monopolist behaviour.
@Claudia Varell: apple are taking far too big a cut of the profits and it has a knock on affect for the whole gaming industry, apple made more money off there 30% cut of ingame purchases than Nintendo xbox playstation and stadia combined did on there total sales, its madness and epic were right to stand up to them as it can be make or break for so many of the small companies that are losing all the profits to apple, the gaming industry is in danger of becoming only for the big guys and indie games have to fight so hard to even be seen never mind available to purchase
@Claudia Varell: I don’t think Tesco make a 30% profit on anything they sell, they work on a low margin model.
@Claudia Varell: In fairness, consumers own the hardware and apple have monopolized the only means of getting an app into it
Is anyone of you aware what Apples services include? Let’s say you write a book and sell it in Argentina. Do you know that you are liable for paying the correct VAT there and follow all regulations of the Argentinian market? The same applies if a German buys your book, someone in Australia, and so on. Especially for small content providers or the “Indie game developers” this is a huge barrier. You probably need to hire tax consultants in several countries or pay an agent.
If you sell through Apple, you don’t need to care. You can also give away your content for free without needing to care about distribution or anything and make yourself a name in the industry.
On top, you don’t need to sell through Apple, if you like to go on your own.
@Claudia Varell: Yeah you don’t need to care about all that as Apple don’t pay tax.. Apple taking a 30% cut, or whatever it is, just for providing the backend infrastructure for downloading to Apple device’s is absolutely extortionate. Should be done on some of sliding scale.
Apple have become very proprietary. I love their products. Hate their ecosystem.
Apple has always been proprietary. I worked there in the 1980’s and it was exactly the same then. In fact their completely integrated ecosystem is one of the things I love.
I understand that Apple are an extremely rich company that made some significant innovations years ago and have a fantastically loyal customer base but I’m not sure what their play is here.
If people can’t get the latest versions of Fortnite on their iPhone, surely they’ll get an Android or ask their parents for one?
But I guess it’s more about the principal of being able to squeeze app developers for all they’re worth so they can add more Money to their cash pile.
@Fifty Shades of Sé: You are aware that Google kicked Fortnite out of their Android Google Playstore as well?
@Claudia Varell: it’s still possible to download it onto an Android device though.
@Claudia Varell: You are massively missing the point. The entire issue here is not that they were kicked out of the store, but that the store is the only way for Iphone users to download it.
With android, that’s not the case so Google removing it from the play store doesn’t stop you from selling it on the android platform.
It’s the equivalent of not being able to download photoshop on your PC because Mocrosoft banned it from their store.
@Gavin Conran: No it’s not Gavin. When you buy a PC it’s running MS operating system, so of course you know it will run MS, Adobe applications etc. When you buy a Mac you know it will run Apple apps and ‘probably’ third party ones too, but if you expect it will run them all you didn’t sign up for the right hardware. Same with iOS. If you don’t want to part of the Apple offerings just go buy some other krap instead.
AAA gaming should have crashed in the 2010s, one of the greediest industries around.
Use precise geolocation data. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Store and/or access information on a device. Personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development.
These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work.
These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.
These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then these services may not function properly.
These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not be able to monitor our performance.
Cookies, device or similar online identifiers (e.g. login-based identifiers, randomly assigned identifiers, network based identifiers) together with other information (e.g. browser type and information, language, screen size, supported technologies etc.) can be stored or read on your device to recognise it each time it connects to an app or to a website, for one or several of the purposes presented here.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times an ad is presented to you).
Information about your activity on this service (such as forms you submit, content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (for example, information from your previous activity on this service and other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (that might include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present advertising that appears more relevant based on your possible interests by this and other entities.
Advertising presented to you on this service can be based on your advertising profiles, which can reflect your activity on this service or other websites or apps (like the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects.
Information about your activity on this service (for instance, forms you submit, non-advertising content you look at) can be stored and combined with other information about you (such as your previous activity on this service or other websites or apps) or similar users. This is then used to build or improve a profile about you (which might for example include possible interests and personal aspects). Your profile can be used (also later) to present content that appears more relevant based on your possible interests, such as by adapting the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find content that matches your interests.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on your content personalisation profiles, which can reflect your activity on this or other services (for instance, the forms you submit, content you look at), possible interests and personal aspects. This can for example be used to adapt the order in which content is shown to you, so that it is even easier for you to find (non-advertising) content that matches your interests.
Information regarding which advertising is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine how well an advert has worked for you or other users and whether the goals of the advertising were reached. For instance, whether you saw an ad, whether you clicked on it, whether it led you to buy a product or visit a website, etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of advertising campaigns.
Information regarding which content is presented to you and how you interact with it can be used to determine whether the (non-advertising) content e.g. reached its intended audience and matched your interests. For instance, whether you read an article, watch a video, listen to a podcast or look at a product description, how long you spent on this service and the web pages you visit etc. This is very helpful to understand the relevance of (non-advertising) content that is shown to you.
Reports can be generated based on the combination of data sets (like user profiles, statistics, market research, analytics data) regarding your interactions and those of other users with advertising or (non-advertising) content to identify common characteristics (for instance, to determine which target audiences are more receptive to an ad campaign or to certain contents).
Information about your activity on this service, such as your interaction with ads or content, can be very helpful to improve products and services and to build new products and services based on user interactions, the type of audience, etc. This specific purpose does not include the development or improvement of user profiles and identifiers.
Content presented to you on this service can be based on limited data, such as the website or app you are using, your non-precise location, your device type, or which content you are (or have been) interacting with (for example, to limit the number of times a video or an article is presented to you).
With your acceptance, your precise location (within a radius of less than 500 metres) may be used in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
With your acceptance, certain characteristics specific to your device might be requested and used to distinguish it from other devices (such as the installed fonts or plugins, the resolution of your screen) in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
Your data can be used to monitor for and prevent unusual and possibly fraudulent activity (for example, regarding advertising, ad clicks by bots), and ensure systems and processes work properly and securely. It can also be used to correct any problems you, the publisher or the advertiser may encounter in the delivery of content and ads and in your interaction with them.
Certain information (like an IP address or device capabilities) is used to ensure the technical compatibility of the content or advertising, and to facilitate the transmission of the content or ad to your device.
Information about your activity on this service may be matched and combined with other information relating to you and originating from various sources (for instance your activity on a separate online service, your use of a loyalty card in-store, or your answers to a survey), in support of the purposes explained in this notice.
In support of the purposes explained in this notice, your device might be considered as likely linked to other devices that belong to you or your household (for instance because you are logged in to the same service on both your phone and your computer, or because you may use the same Internet connection on both devices).
Your device might be distinguished from other devices based on information it automatically sends when accessing the Internet (for instance, the IP address of your Internet connection or the type of browser you are using) in support of the purposes exposed in this notice.
The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
have your say