We are just a handful of days away from Microsoft officially launching their xCloud game streaming service, and as a long-time Apple fan and devout iOS and Mac user, it has been a bitter pill to swallow. You see I’m also a big Xbox fan and absolutely love the idea of xCloud. Being able to stream more than 100 full-blown console games to a variety of devices including smartphones and tablets feels like the future. But because of Apple’s arbitrary guidelines and how they relate to different types of media, iOS users won’t be allowed to partake in that future. That’s because Apple has thus far not allowed game streaming services like xCloud or Google’s Stadia onto the App Store, and one of the main reasons they’ve cited is because they require the ability to review and approve every game that’s included in those types of services.
To be fair, Apple has a point with these requirements. If a game doesn’t have an individual approval process or its own page in the App Store things like the app chart rankings, ratings, search metadata, and other aspects of how the App Store are run wouldn’t work right. I somewhat get where they’re coming from. But it’s also true that things like Netflix and Kindle exist. Apple does not require Netflix to individually submit for review each and every movie or TV show offered with their subscription service, nor do they individually review every book on the Kindle store. Apple ...